El Salvador Hosts Bitcoin Event For Central Banks & Other Authorities
El Salvador is organizing an international conference for central bank and other financial authorities representatives today, Bukele announced less than 24 hours before the event.
44 central banks and key financial institutions have been invited to event, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele tweeted.
Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country.
According to the tweet, the topic of the conversation will focus on El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption and its benefits around three key areas — financial inclusion, digital economy, and banking for the unbanked.
Central banks and financial institutions are from Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sao Tome, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya, Paraguay, Angola, Ghana, Namibia, Uganda, Guinea, Madagascar, Haiti, Burundi, Eswatini, Jordan, Gambia, Maldives, Rwanda, Costa Rica, El Salvador, among others will participate in the event, Bukele tweeted.
To hold an international bitcoin conference inviting government representatives from a long list countries is significant given the critical opinions of central banks and international financial organizations.
In January this year, IMF urged El Salvador to remove bitcoin as a legal tender, saying that it is a threat to market integrity, financial stability, and consumer protection. Obviously, the El Salvador government did not follow the suggestion.
A US bill cleared by a Senate Committee in February this year has sought relevant departments to study the adoption of bitcoin by El Salvador and report to Congress on how it affects US interests abroad, including the US dollar’s reserve currency status.
“El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin is not a thoughtful embrace of innovation, but a careless gamble that is destabilizing the country,” the Senate Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act (ACES) says.
During the current market pullback, El Salvador bought the dip and added 500 BTC to the government coffers, taking the total number of BTC holding to 2,301, worth about $71 million at the current market prices.
