El Salvador President Submits Bill to Recognize Bitcoin as Legal Tender

In a pre-recorded video, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced that he will send a bill to the country's congress to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. Loud applause from the crowd in Miami drowned out the rest of his remarks.

The announcement did not immediately boost the price of Bitcoin (BTC), which is down 6% over the past 24 hours, after Elon Musk on Thursday evening tweeted out a meme about his breakup with Bitcoin.

Mallers said on stage that he had lived in El Salvador for three months and discovered that some 70% of the population there does not have a bank account, and 20% of the country's GDP comes from remittances sent by migrants to family members. Strike launched in El Salvador in March, and Mallers said the app has been "onboarding" 20,000 El Salvadorans per day. He framed Bukele's forthcoming legislation as the next step in a partnership between Strike, which will open an office in El Salvador, and the local government there.

Mallers called the announcement a "shot heard 'round the world for Bitcoin." VC and Bitcoin flag-waver Tim Draper praised it as a "brilliant government move" and said "entrepreneurs and investors will be on the next flights to El Salvador." Caitlin Long of Avanti Bank & Trust in Wyoming called it a "historic day in Bitcoin" but also predicted a "knockdown fight" to get approval because recognizing Bitcoin as legal tender would likely give it the same status as foreign currencies by banks, a level of legitimacy for the top cryptocurrency that many do not want to see granted. (Bukele does have a majority of votes in El Salvador's congress.)

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