According to statements from a senior U.S. State Department official, Victoria Nuland, the U.S. hopes El Salvador will be responsible with the country’s new bitcoin tender law passed on June 9, 2021. The U.S. Department of State’s undersecretary of state for political affairs. Nuland explained that she had a meeting with the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele and they discussed the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
U.S diplomat urged El Salvador to ensure bitcoin is well regulated.
The American diplomat stressed to Bukele that the U.S. was taking “another tough look at bitcoin after the Colonial Pipeline ransomware case.” “I did suggest to the president that whatever El Salvador chooses to do, you ensure that it is well regulated, that it is transparent and that it is responsible, and you protect yourself against malign actors,” Nuland told reporters at the press conference. El Salvador has had issues getting world leaders to agree with the new bitcoin tender law’s benefits. The new bitcoin law will come into effect on September 7.
American economist warns El Salvador could face complete economic collapse with bitcoin law.
Earlier, Steve Hanke, who served as a senior economist under President Ronald Reagan’s administration from 1981 to 1982, warned that El Salvador’s decision to authorize bitcoin as legal tender has the potential to “completely collapse the economy.” The Central American country also faced criticism from global regulators for its historic law to make bitcoin an optional legal tender in the country. Hanke had said, “It has the potential to completely collapse the economy because all the dollars in El Salvador could be vacuumed up, and there’d be no money in the country. They don’t have a domestic currency.”
