Why El Salvador Made Bitcoin Legal Tender with President Nayib Bukele - WBD363

Mr Obnoxious

Peter McCormack

Technology, News, Politics, Money, Investing, Finance, Bitcoin

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2021

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Location: El Salvador
Date: Friday 18th June
Project: El Salvador
Role: President

Twenty years ago, El Salvador became a dollarised nation, bringing economic stability to the country and improving the country's potential for investment. However, it did so at the cost of giving up its monetary policy to the US Federal bank.

Two decades later, following the COVID-19, the global economic outlook has changed significantly. As a result, the Fed has taken extreme measures to combat the economic impact of the pandemic and is printing money at previously unseen levels.

The stimulus packages that help American's do not make their way to dollarised El Salvador, but the people of Salvadorans do suffer the adverse effects of the US debasing the dollar.

Two years ago, Nayib Bukele won a landslide presidential election in El Salvador, becoming the first President since the Salvadoran Civil War who did not represent either of the two major parties.

As the founder of the political party Nuevas Ideas, President Bukele lived up to his reputation when on the 8th of June 2021, El Salvador enacted its Bitcoin Law, making it the first country to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender. The decision has been met with excitement and scepticism.

Could this bold move be a catalyst for prosperity in El Salvador? And will other nations follow suit, potentially helping billions?

In his first interview since the Bitcoin law was passed, I talked to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. We discuss the decision to make bitcoin legal tender, education & infrastructure, volcano mining, and why he believes bitcoin is a ‘no-brainer’.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is just exercising our southern right to adopt legal tenders.
0:09.0	Like we adopted a U.S. dollar in the year 2001.
0:14.0	The only difference probably is the reasons why we are doing this.
0:20.0	In 2001, it was probably done for the benefit of the banks and this decision is done
0:25.6	for the benefit of the people.
0:27.6	Hello there from Bedford in the United Kingdom.
0:30.4	How are you all doing?
0:31.6	I have returned to the motherland after spending a few weeks out in El Salvador and in the US
0:38.4	Specifically in El Salvador. I went out originally to look at the expansion of the Bitcoin project out there and obviously
0:44.8	we heard the news that Bitcoin has been made a legal tender in the country. Wow, what a few weeks.
0:50.8	Anyway, welcome to the What Bitcoin did podcast which is brought to you by
0:54.6	Gemini the only place I am using for buying Bitcoin I'm your host Peter McCormack and today
0:59.7	I've got an interview with El Salvador president Nijibukele, but before that I do have a message from my show sponsors.
1:07.0	Okay, today we're going to kick off with Ledger, the world's most popular hardware wallet.
1:11.8	Now a hardware wallet allows you to take custody of
1:14.7	your Bitcoin and I have been a ledger user since early 2017 and I'm still using the
1:21.1	same nanos I bought back then. Now Ledger makes it easy for you to
1:25.3	safely manage your Bitcoin using their Ledger live software which interfaces with
1:30.2	your device. And also if you're an Android a phone user you can connect that to your with your
1:35.0	Bitcoin device. And also if you are an Android, a phone user, you can connect that to your nanos
1:35.8	and manage your Bitcoin on the go.
1:38.0	If you want to find out more, please head over to Ledger.com, which is LEDGER.com. Next up we have Gemini. dot com.
	...

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