The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will meet with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to finalize discussions around a pandemic relief loan to support the Central American nation. In a Thursday press briefing, IMF spokesman Garry Rice also implied that El Salvador’s decision to make Bitcoin a national currency will be a focus of the meeting for the IMF team.
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- “Adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require very careful analysis,” Rice said. “We are following developments closely, and we’ll continue our consultations with the authorities.”
- El Salvador moved very quickly on Bukele’s vision to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, with the Bitcoin law passing through its legislative assembly in less than a week — thanks in no small part to the supermajority held by the authoritarian leader — from the time it was announced at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami.
- “Crypto-assets can pose significant risks,” Rice said. “Effective regulatory measures are very important when dealing with them.”
- It was also recently reported that Bukele has instructed the state-owned electrical company LaGeo, to make geothermal power facilities — which leverage El Salvador’s active volcanoes — available to Bitcoin miners.