El Salvador on Tuesday becomes the first country in the world to accept bitcoin as legal tender, despite widespread domestic skepticism and international warnings of risks for consumers.
President Nayib Bukele’s government claims the move will give many Salvadorans access to bank services for the first time and save some $400 million in fees on remittances sent home from abroad every year.
“Tomorrow, for the first time in history, all the eyes of the world will be on El Salvador. #Bitcoin did this,” Bukele said on Twitter Monday.
He started the ball rolling Monday evening by announcing El Salvador had bought its first 400 bitcoins, in two tranches of 200, and promised more were coming.
The 400 bitcoins were trading at around $21 million, according to the cryptocurrency exchange app Gemini.
Recent opinion polls showed a majority of El Salvador’s 6.5 million people reject the idea and will continue using the US dollar, the country’s legal currency for the last 20 years.
“This bitcoin is a currency that does not exist, a currency that will not benefit the poor but the rich,” said skeptic Jose Santos Melara, who took part in a protest by several hundred people in the capital San Salvador last week.
