Still without construction deadline, it will be in the coastal city of Conchagua, where the volcano of the same name is located, which will give it energy.
Two months ago, bitcoin was circulated as legal tender in El Salvador, and it has just taken a new step. President Nayib Bukele will build “Bitcoin City” as part of the plan to turn his country into a global financial center.
Bukele started the bitcoin era in September, amid the distrust and enthusiasm of the international community, when the cryptocurrency was above $ 44,000. Until this Sunday, November 21, the crypto asset had appreciated more than 30% and is around $ 60,000.
During his tenure, 1,120 bitcoins have been acquired, which, he said, have registered “sufficient profits” to start the construction of the first public veterinary hospital and 20 schools.
“Bitcoin has started to change the world and will change it even more. El Salvador is in a historic moment, ”said the president before a crowd of Bitcoineros gathered in Mizata, a Pacific beach located 80km southwest of San Salvador.
The city
In Mizata it was the end of the party for Labitconf, a global forum that has brought together enthusiasts and millionaires of cryptocurrencies. There he announced the launch of “Bitcoin City” last Saturday night, November 20.
Still without construction deadline, it will be in the coastal city of Conchagua, where the volcano of the same name is located, which will give it energy through a geothermal plant. It will have an airport, residential and commercial areas and a square with the symbol of Bitcoin in the center.
With no other tax other than the value added tax (VAT), it will be an ecological city, and will be initially financed with bonds issued in the bitcoin ecosystem, equivalent to about 1,000 million dollars.
“El Salvador will be the financial center of the world. The Singapore of America “, said Samsom Mow, strategic director Blockstream, provider of blockchain technology – in which cryptocurrencies operate – and who supports Bukele in the issuance of” Bitcoin Bonds “.
Break dollars
At Labitconf, last Thursday, Max Keizer, a Bitcoin evangelist, broke dollars in public during his lecture. “Bitcoin in El Salvador is the declaration of independence of the 21st century (…). On Twitter I say that President Bukele is the new George Washington, ”he added.
Attendees bragged about how they could shop with cryptocurrency from their McDonald’s breakfast to traditional pupusas, thick corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and pork.
Among the speakers was in virtual form American Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX and one of the richest people in cryptocurrencies in the world, according Forbes, with a fortune equivalent to 26,000 million dollars.
“Bitcoin is not an investment, it is a discovery, it is one of the most important discoveries of humanity, it can be equated to the discovery of fire in prehistory”, considered Daniel Alos, Argentine collaborator of the Hodl Hodl platform, and podcaster of BTC in Spanish.
More than half of the 6.7 million Salvadorans have downloaded the Chivo application, the digital wallet, on their cell phones, which with a gift equivalent to 30 dollars, made available to the government to stimulate transactions and receive remittances from abroad.
It is mandatory to accept operations with bitcoin, but the end user can choose dollars in the final transaction, the official currency of the country 20 years ago.
“We bitcoiners have always had problems accessing financial markets, accessing banking and here (in El Salvador) the opposite occurs, we are welcome to bring our investments,” said Alos.
Another of the attendees was the Venezuelan Ramsés Meneses “McKlopedia”, 37 years old, a rapper with 623,000 followers on Instagram and dedicated to art in NFT (non-fungible token), digital works of art.
“Artists with the theme of NFTs, which is cryptocurrency technology applied to art, can create artistic works that allow us to generate direct income without intermediaries,” he tells the AFP. “It is a revolution,” he said.
A digital video by artist Beeple, purchased in 2020, sold in early 2021 for more than $ 6 million.
Lots of doubts
The former president of the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador, Carlos Acevedo, On the sidelines of the conference, he estimated that despite being a “high risk speculative asset” investment in bitcoin has become “attractive” because it is going through “one of its best streaks.”
As he told the AFP Salvadoran economist Luis Membreno, “A currency must be stable, that allows people to make financial planning, that does not expose the scarce resources that many people have to a volatility that can lead them to lose what little they have.”
But his Argentine colleague Carlos Maslatón He considered that bitcoin has “a long way to go”, which could reach close to $ 400,000 in two years. (I)
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