El Salvador Financial News

Concerns are being voiced that El Salvador could default on bond payments, with international critics claiming that President Nayib Bukele’s “experiment” to grant bitcoin (BTC) legal currency status “has hit a wall.”

The booming of the crypto coins like Bitcoin in different regions and nations is unstoppable. This has recently been observed in the case of the Central African Republic (CAR). Of course, one of the major questions that have remained unanswered is whether Bitcoin adoption can work in such a developing country.

East Africa is set to welcome a new cryptocurrency exchange backed by a formidable list of industry heavyweights looking to tap into a continent full of potential users.

Lionel Laurent

After weeks of silence on all things bitcoin (BTC)-related, El Salvador’s outspoken President Nayib Bukele has taken to Twitter to announce that his government has bought USD 15.4m worth of BTC – and to showcase plans for Bitcoin City. However, voices of opposition are continuing to issue warnings, with a former chief of the central bank hitting out at Bukele’s plans to fund the city’s construction with a bitcoin bond issuance.

Reporting on a consultation with the Caribbean nation on Monday, the IMF said its executive directors “recognized the potential of the Sand Dollar to foster financial inclusion” and recommended the Central Bank of The Bahamas “ accelerate its education campaigns and continue strengthening internal capacity and oversight.” The consultation was somewhat of a departure from several of the IMF’s previous warnings to many countries against the adoption of digital assets — but many of those did not include CBDCs.

The governor of the Bank of Central African States (Banque des États de l'Afrique Centrale, BEAC) has issued a scathing letter to the Central African Republic (CAR) regarding the country’s adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Many African countries are warming up to the idea of adopting cryptocurrencies

If Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were somehow transported to the present day and given a newspaper, the apparent lack of class conflict would probably make the revolutionaries think they’d won. They would see a society split on all manner of subjects — from identity politics to the correct COVID-19 strategy — but virtually silent on the eternal struggle between labor and capital, the oppressors and the exploited.

Decentralized finance firm Qredo has received approval for registration as a Bitcoin (BTC) service provider in El Salvador.

The Salvadoran government is “waiting for a bitcoin (BTC) price rise” before releasing its long-awaited BTC bonds, the nation’s finance minister has claimed.

Bitcoin crossed a major milestone in September 2021, when it became a legal tender for El Salvador. Although this move was condemned by financial regulators, the country’s GDP grew. This was a major development for Bitcoin as many countries considered El Salvador as an experiment and it seems like the Central African Republic has seen enough to follow the trend setter. It might be a matter of time until the next country makes the announcement.Flipkart jumps into Web 3Flipkart surprisingly tweeted on the 28th of April that it is now exploring Web 3.0. The timing of the announcement is interesting as it comes during an extreme uncertainty in the Indian crypto ecosystem. The second reason why it is surprising is that last April they mentioned that they would accept Bitcoin as a method of payment on their platform on April Fool's Day.

Crypto adoption is rising high on the political agenda in Latin America, where legislation is edging closer to promulgation – although Argentinean Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto miners have received a warning that if the chips are down, they could be ordered to power down their rigs.

El Salvador’s government-backed Bitcoin (BTC) wallet has reached significant success in terms of adoption, according to an exec at the cryptocurrency exchange behind the wallet.

April 2022 marked the fourth consecutive month of a slowdown in the installation of Bitcoin (BTC) ATMs, ever since the slowdown began at the start of the year.

Cuban central bank issued regulations last Tuesday for virtual asset service providers

Offshore financial services' hub, Panama, adopts crypto assets

Lawmakers in Panama have passed a bill that will regulate cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, in the Latin American country.

Samson Mow, former chief strategy officer at Blokstream and founder of JAN3, is convinced that most decentralized finance protocols can’t compete with Bitcoin when it comes to providing an effective monetary network because of their lack of decentralization. 

Months after Bitcoin (BTC) became legal tender in El Salvador, a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) shows that 20 percent of businesses have started to accept BTC as their payment method. 

The Central African Republic has become the second country in the world to adopt bitcoin as official currency, after El Salvador took the same step last year.