El Salvador Invites Over 40 Central Banks for International Event on Bitcoin

After buying the dip and adding 500 BTCs to the state coffer, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has another surprise up his sleeves. The country is organizing an international conference of central bank representatives today, Bukele announced less than 24 hours before the event. 

El Salvador’s Conference of Central Banks

El Salvador will host an international bitcoin event on Monday where 44 central banks and key financial institutions have been invited, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said in a tweet Sunday evening. 

Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country.

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) May 16, 2022

It is believed that official representatives from these countries will discuss El Salvador’s bitcoin adoption and its benefits around three key areas — financial inclusion, digital economy, and banking for the unbanked. 

Central banks and financial institutions of Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sao Tome, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya, Paraguay, Angola, Ghana, Namibia, Uganda, Guinea, Madagascar, Haiti, Burundi, Eswatini, Jordan, Gambia, Maldives, Rwanda, Costa Rica, El Salvador, among others will participate in the event, Bukele said in the follow-up tweet. 

Significance of Bukele’s Bitcoin Conference

Bukele’s decision to hold an international bitcoin conference inviting government representatives from close to 50 countries assumes significance given the critical opinions of central banks and international financial organizations. 

For example, IMF urged El Salvador to remove bitcoin as a legal tender in January this year, citing it as a threat to market integrity, financial stability, and consumer protection. As expected, the El Salvador government rejected the demand. 

A US bill cleared by a Senate Committee in February this year has sought relevant departments to study the adoption of bitcoin by El Salvador and report to Congress on how it affects US interests abroad, including the US dollar’s reserve currency status, CryptoPotato reported in April 2022. 

“El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin is not a thoughtful embrace of innovation, but a careless gamble that is destabilizing the country,” the Senate Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act (ACES) says.

Bukele’s Missed Bitcoin 2022 Address

El Salvador hosting an international conference on bitcoin adoption and other related topics comes in the wake of his failure to address the Miami Bitcoin 2022 event in early April. He had to cancel his trip, given the heightened gang crimes and murders that rocked the country towards the end of March 2022. It led him to impose a state of emergency that suspended many of the constitutional rights of the citizens. 

It was during the Miami Bitcoin 2021 conference that Bukele announced his country’s plans to make bitcoin a legal tender. This year, he was expected to present a progress report on the adoption of BTC as legal tender and El Salvador’s $1 billion bitcoin bond. 

During the current market pullback, El Salvador bought the dip and added 500 BTC to the government coffers, taking the total number of BTC holding to 2,301, worth about $71 million at the current market prices.