El Salvador: this Tuesday, bitcoin will begin to circulate as legal tender | Strong rejection of the population to the use of cryptocurrency

The law that will allow the circulation of bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador comes into force on Tuesday. The country will become the first in the world to officially include this currency in its economy.

The Bitcoin Law, approved in June by the ruling majority in the Legislative Assembly, it states that “every economic agent must accept bitcoin as a means of payment when it is thus offered by the person who acquires a good or a service ”.

Bitcoin law in El Salvador

In other words, its use is mandatory, although the president, Here to watch, He specified that it will be subject to the option of the Salvadorians.

In addition, the regulations state that “the exchange rate between bitcoin and the dollar will be freely fixed by the market“.

Starting Tuesday, Salvadorans will be able to use ATMs, where bitcoin owners can withdraw dollars in cash.

Likewise, they will be able to download the electronic wallet promoted by the government and called “Chivo wallet“.

Bonus in dollars

People who decide to install the application on their mobile phones they will receive a bonus in bitcoin equivalent to 30 dollars, without these being able to be changed into dollars.

The key between accepting and receiving bitcoin, according to an explanation given by Bukele, lies in the “automatic and instant convertibility” crypto-asset in dollars.

The Salvadoran president encouraged the use of bitcoin as a measure to eliminate the payment of commissions for sending funds to United States, which support the Salvadoran economy and benefit 1.63 million Salvadorans.

In total, 471,633 families receive these currencies, of which 13,530 are in extreme poverty and 68,874 in relative poverty, according to official sources.

According to the president, they are 400 million those that Salvadorans pay abroad each year to send funds, which 2020 totaled more than 5.9 billion.

Rejection of citizenship

However, the majority of Salvadorans show disinterest, rejection and mistrust of the use of bitcoin, according to the results of the survey.

Hundreds of Salvadorans, mostly young people, have demonstrated in recent days against the establishment of bitcoin as a bargaining chip and called for the repeal of the law that will allow its use.

According to a survey by the University Institute of Public Opinion at the University of Central America (Iudop), the 66.7% of the population believe that the Bitcoin law must be repealed, the 78.3% of citizens have little or no interest in downloading the e-wallet application to their phone and 71.2% prefer to use the dollar.

The official currencies in El Salvador, according to the law on monetary integration, there are two: the US dollar and the colon, although the latter is no longer circulating.