The government of El Salvador is forging off at its President Nayib Bukele’s dream of creating a bitcoin (BTC)-driven economy — with the cupboard”discussing” intends to allow firms to pay workers in BTC and preliminary meetings with international Bitcoin players already underway.
Speaking to the media, Rolando Castro, the Salvadorian Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, said that government ministers are discussing whether firms in the country needs to pay staff in BTC — even though he later bogged down the assertion.
Castro told reporters:
“[depositing wages in BTC] this is an issue that is being discussed at the moment. […] In due course, there’ll be a meeting with the entire cupboard, […] but it is still too early to be able to progress with this matter.”
On Twitter, Castro then sought to temper talk of BTC pay, writing in reaction to a media report about his remarks:
“A clarification: At no time have I [said that wages will be paid in BTC]. When asked about the matter, I only said it was too early to speak about wages, and that I am focusing on discovering better and more jobs [for Salvadorians]. The monetary issue is a matter for the economy-focused region of the cupboard, of that I am not a part.”
Meanwhile, the Bukele has also been occupied — interesting prominent members of the crypto community. The crypto podcaster Peter McCormack was among those summoned to a meeting with the President. And while Bukele was dressed in a generally dapper manner, much was made of McCormack’s apparel.
The President quipped on Twitter that speaking about ”fresh volcano renewable energy plants with bitcoin mining facilities“, as well as ”BTC adoption as legal tender, financial inclusion for countless and the greatest development of humankind” topped”G7 meetings with no Metallica t-shirts.”
Others were impressed by McCormack’s choice of clothing.
I adore that the Bitcoin world! Peter McCormack meeting the president of El Salvador in a Metallica t-shirt and ripped je… https://t.co/ggyxglCJT3– Marc van der Chijs (@marcvanderchijs)
Meanwhile, the CEO of the crypto exchange platform Paxful Ray Youssef took to Twitter to announce that he had ”rolled into El Salvador to a king’s welcome thanks to El Presidente” within a ”Bitcoin delegation.”
Youssef posted an image of himself grinning widely and flanked by four armed police officers.
Rolled into El Salvador ## to a kings welcome thanks to El Presidente. And in the USA, Caitlin Long, the Founder and CEO of the Avanti Financial Group, claimed that improvements in El Salvador were shaking up legal conversations in America. She said that”El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender has already moved the USA in ways few yet understand.”
Long also pointed out that a draft Uniform Commercial Code and Emerging Technologies Committee proposal contained a clause referring to”intangible” forms of cash.
She declared that this”draft proposal isn’t law yet anywhere,” but maintained”it is evolving quickly,” and the”new definition leaves space for account-based cash (i.e. central bank electronic currencies) and recognizes’super-negotiability’ for bitcoin.
”But it seems not everyone is convinced that Bukele’s strategy is sound — with one prominent economic thinker claiming the BTC adoption legislation is a”breach of human rights”
According to a separate report by La Prensa Gráfica, Jonathan Menkos, the long-serving president of the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies (ICEFI) — a think tank that conducts economic research and technical analysis related to fiscal problems in the region — has hit out at Bukele’s move.
Menkos was quoted as saying that BTC’s volatility could reflect threats onto the public — and were pensions and other state payments left from the market, could jeopardize the financial security of the entire nation.Menkos added:
“I do not know of any Nobel laureates that are in favor of cryptocurrencies.”
He went on to equate the move to ”playing with fire” and maintained that the legislation made little sense in El Salvador, a nation that already had no monetary policy due to the dollarization of the economy, saying:
”And to this, [Bukele] will add uncertainty and danger more to the economy, and people’s incomes”
The common desire of humans is your desire to invest. We want to invest in something concrete, like a car, a home, a business, not in something that can vanish from 1 day to the next. For Salvadorans, bitcoin [adoption] is a breach of the individual right to well-being and of course to decide what to do with one’s personal assets. Purchasing a cryptocurrency is not the same as investing in the actual economy, buying a home […] or having savings,” that the ICEFI main reasoned.
