The South American country of Paraguay is allegedly paving the way for crypto adoption like El Salvador, its neighbor to the far north, has.
Paraguay Has Caught the Bitcoin Fever
The news came by way of congressman and the National Deputy of Paraguay Carlitos Rejala, who said on Twitter that Paraguay needs to do all it can to embrace crypto adoption and utilize it as legal tender like El Salvador. He then attached a picture of himself with laser eyes, the ultimate sign that someone has caught the bitcoin bug.
In his tweet, Rejala said that bitcoin is the money of new generations, and he wants his country to ensure it’s prepared for a digital financial future, which he feels is inevitable at this time. He commented on social media:
As I was saying a long time ago, our country needs to advance hand in hand with the new generation. The moment has come, our moment. This week, we start with an important project to innovate Paraguay in front of the world! The real one to the moon #btc & #PayPal.
El Salvador was the first nation in the world to declare bitcoin legal tender. Doing so in September of 2021, the time came when literally anyone could walk into a store or a business and say they were paying for whatever goods or services necessary with bitcoin along with USD, which up to that point, El Salvador had long been dependent on.
In addition, business owners could not discriminate against the holders of the bitcoin and were required to accept the payments whether they wanted to or not.
The news of El Salvador’s adoption of BTC first came after the final days of a bitcoin conference attended by the nation’s president Nayib Bukele. He mentioned that he was sending a bill to Congress designed to make bitcoin a legal payment option within his nation. He stated:
Next week, I will send to Congress a bill that will make bitcoin legal tender.
He further commented that the establishment of bitcoin as legal tender would ensure that El Salvador remained heavy on jobs and financial inclusion. He mentioned:
In the short term, this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy.
A Bill for the Digital Ages
The bill garnered the assistance of Jack Mallers, the CEO of Zap which creates the Strike bitcoin payments app. He said that the bill would likely be examined in the future amongst countries looking to protect themselves from inflation and diversify their payment platforms. He commented:
What’s transformative here is that bitcoin is both the greatest reserve asset ever created and a superior monetary network. Holding bitcoin provides a way to protect developing economies from potential shocks of fiat currency inflation.
