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posted by martyb on Thursday June 10 2021, @07:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the [bit]coin-of-the-realm? dept.

Bitcoin now legal tender in El Salvador, first nation to adopt cryptocurrency:

On Wednesday, El Salvador’s president signed into law a proposal to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, making the Central American nation the first in the world to officially use the cryptocurrency.

The new law says that companies must accept bitcoin as a form of payment, and the government will allow people to pay taxes with it as well. The exchange rate with the dollar will be set by the market, and exchanges from dollars to bitcoin won’t be subject to capital gains tax. The law was passed by a supermajority vote of the legislature, with 62 of 84 deputies assenting.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday June 10 2021, @12:09PM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Thursday June 10 2021, @12:09PM (#1143852) Journal

    I doubt the banks need to do anything. At present, the BitCon network can handle about five transactions per second and the way that the system is designed means that the computational cost of transactions increases over time. Five transactions per second *might* be enough for El Salvador, especially if it's a publicity stunt and hardly anyone actually bothers. If it gets any kind of traction then people are going to complain that it doesn't work when they try to use it.

    That's ignoring the fact that the volatility of the exchange rate means that any merchant who accepts BitCon will want to put the BitCon price at about double the fiat-currency price to avoid making a loss. If the law doesn't allow this then as soon as businesses start suffering from accidentally selling things at below cost because the value of the 'money' that was spent dropped significantly between the sale and conversion then you'll see mass protests from shopkeepers.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 10 2021, @12:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 10 2021, @12:16PM (#1143856)

    These problems have already been solved, do a bit of research into this story. Look up strike. The level of dunning kruger in this thread is stunning.