President Salvador Allende went after those who questioned El Salvador’s decision to legalize Bitcoin.
El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, is a strong supporter of Bitcoin and believes that the days of fiat money are over. Bukele said in a tweet on Friday that Bitcoin is the “true revolution” that the world is experiencing right now, and that fiat currency’s days are numbered.
The term “fiat” refers to physical currencies such as rupees or dollars. In his most recent tweet, the 40-year-old Salvadoran President targeted those who questioned El Salvador’s decision to legalize Bitcoin.
“What has been dubbed “The Bitcoin Experiment” by international organizations is nothing more than the world watching how mass adoption affects a country’s economy,” he tweeted. If it’s for the better, it’s game over for fiat,” he says, adding that “El Salvador is the spark that ignites the true revolution.”
El Salvador became the world’s first nation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September, a move that made international headlines and drew criticism from the opposition and the IMF, which warned the country against making Bitcoin legal tender due to the risks associated with the cryptocurrency’s volatility.
However, Bukele announced in November that it intends to build the world’s first “Bitcoin City,” which will be funded by the issuance of a $1 billion Bitcoin Bond. The city will be built near a volcano along the Gulf of Fonseca. Bukele’s administration is banking on Bitcoin to boost the country’s economic growth and investment, assuming that the Bitcoin price continues to rise.
Bitcoin City residents will not be subject to income, property, capital gains, or even payroll taxes, according to Bukele. The city will be built to attract foreign investment.
El Salvador had 1,220 Bitcoins as of November 26, and the President is on a Bitcoin buying spree.
Eswar Prasad, an international trade policy professor at Cornell University, warned last week that Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, may become obsolete in the near future. In a recent interview with CNBC, Prasad stated that Bitcoin’s inefficiency as a form of payment and inability to facilitate exchange would be its downfall.