El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, announced Monday that the country had just bought its first 200 coins to key start adoption of the digital currency as a legal tender in the country.
He said, “Our brokers will be buying a lot more as the deadline approaches.” At the current BTC price of $51,691, the 200 bitcoins are worth about $10.34 million.
Bukele also tweeted, “Tomorrow, for the first time in history, all the eyes of the world will be on El Salvador.” The country’s Bitcoin Law, passed in June, will enter into force on Tuesday, Sept. 7. It will make bitcoin legal tender in the country alongside the U.S. dollar. The government recently published a video explaining what to expect.
In preparation for bitcoin becoming legal tender, El Salvador’s Congress passed a law on August 31 to create a $150-million fund to facilitate conversions from bitcoin to U.S. dollars.
Money for the new fund will be redirected from the finance ministry’s current budget and administered by the state development bank of El Salvador.
Meanwhile, a growing number of bitcoin supporters are planning to buy $30 worth of BTC to show their support for El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law. $30 is also the amount that President Bukele promised to give anyone who uses the government’s bitcoin wallet, Chivo.
Some people are planning to spend more than $30. Tahini’s Restaurant, for example, said that in support of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law, it will “buy $300 every hour tomorrow.”
According to Bukele, about 200 ATMs and 50 bank branches featuring the government’s Chivo wallet are being installed in different parts of the country where users can deposit and withdraw money without paying commissions.
Not everyone is keen on bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador, however. A recent national survey shows that seven out of 10 Salvadorans want the Bitcoin Law repealed and as many as nine out of 10 respondents do not have a clear understanding of what bitcoin is
