El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, announced that the country will build the world’s first “Bitcoin City”, financed initially by issuing bonds due to be launched in the cryptocurrency market in 2022. The country is the first to accept the cryptoactive as legal tender, which provoked a wave of protests.
“What will the ‘Bitcoin City’ include? It will be in the Gulf of Fonseca [oceano PacÃfico, no sudeste do paÃs]. And it will have everything: residential and commercial areas, services, museums, entertainment, bars, restaurants, airport, port, train, everything,” said Bukele, in English, at the closing of Labitconf, an annual forum that brings together “bitcoiners” from the world.
“With the mayor and everything,” he added.
“Bitcoin City”, or “Bitcoin City”, whose construction deadline was not informed, will be in the coastal city of Conchagua, where the homonymous volcano, which will supply the energy for the project, is located.
“We will harness geothermal power generation for the city and bitcoin mining,” said Bukele.
Since September 7, El Salvador is the first country to authorize bitcoin as a legal currency, alongside the dollar.
Bitcoin mining is the process by which new bitcoins are created. In it, computers are used that solve complex mathematical problems, whose operation requires a large amount of electrical energy.
Today, this energy comes from a geothermal power plant built in 1999 and fed by the volcano Tecapa, in the city of Berlin.
According to Bukele, the only tax that the “Bitcoin City” will have is the Value Added Tax (VAT), invested in its maintenance.
Bitcoin’s first few months as the official currency in El Salvador are one of confusion and protest. With about half of the population living below poverty, the country lives with protests against the cryptocurrency, considered by many to be an “against the poor” currency.
The population is still trying to adapt to its use – some, without success, while others see it as an investment.
The last few weeks have seen protests in the country, the biggest since the president came to power in 2019. About half of the country’s population lives below the poverty line.
On October 17, with posters bearing the phrases “Bitcoin, the fraud” and “No to the dictatorship”, Salvadorans took to the streets again.
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