President
Nayib Bukele of El Salvador recently announced that the country is setting up 200 automated teller machines (ATMs) and 50 staffed kiosks to facilitate exchanges of the cyrptocurrency bitcoin into US dollars for withdrawal as cash. All transactions will be conducted through the government’s cryptocurrency app, Chivo, with no transaction fees. This announcement comes as El Salvador is adopting bitcoin as legal tender as of September 7. Among the motivations for encouraging the use of bitcoin is to reduce the cost of remittances sent to individuals in El Salvador from other countries.
By Divya Deshmukh, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Resources
TheStreet news article
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/el-salvador-atms-kiosks-bitcoin
Additional news on El Salvador
https://www.microcapital.org/?s=salvador
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