Bukele Slams U.S. Over Senate's Bitcoin Adoption Bill
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said that the United States stands against freedom in a criticism of its Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador (ACES) Act.
Key Takeaways
- El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has bashed the U.S. government on Twitter, saying that the country does not stand for freedom.
- Bukele's made the comments in response to the U.S. Senate's vote to pass the Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador (ACES) Act bill past the committee.
- If passed, the bill would instruct the government to submit a report and a plan addressing the potential risks El Salvador's Bitcoin use could pose to the U.S. financial system.
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El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has expressed discontent over the U.S. government’s worries concerning the Central American country’s Bitcoin play.
Bukele Criticizes U.S. Bill
The President of El Salvador has slammed the U.S. for being “afraid” of the Central American country’s work around the dollar. He also accused the U.S. of standing against freedom.
The US Government DOES NOT stand for freedom and that is a proven fact.
So we will stand for freedom.
Game on!#Bitcoin is FU money! https://t.co/1lwSM8s6OX
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 24, 2022
“The US Government DOES NOT stand for freedom and that is a proven fact. So we will stand for freedom. Game on! Bitcoin is FU money!” Bukele wrote in a Thursday tweet.
Bukele was referring to a new bill the Senate had voted on that would require the U.S. government to assess the risks of El Salvador’s adoption as legal tender. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the US Government would be afraid of what we are doing here,” Bukele wrote alongside a screenshot of the bill.
The bill, dubbed the “Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador (ACES) Act,” was introduced by one Democratic and two Republican Senators in February and voted past the committee stage by the Senate Wednesday.
If passed, the bill would give the U.S. Secretary of State and other relevant Federal departments and agencies no more than 60 days to submit a report on El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender to Congress. The ACES also gives the Secretary of State and relevant agencies 90 days to submit “a plan to mitigate any potential risk to the United States financial system posed by the adoption of a cryptocurrency as legal tender in El Salvador; and any other country that uses the States dollar as legal tender.”
Based on Bukele’s comments following the bill’s initial introduction, El Salvador’s leader perceives the U.S. Senate’s actions as a threat to the country’s sovereignty. “OK boomers… You have 0 jurisdiction on a sovereign and independent nation. We are not your colony, your back yard, or your front yard. Stay out of our internal affairs,” he responded to the Senate’s bill announcement in February.
El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender in September 2021. Since then, the government has made significant efforts to increase crypto adoption within its economy, including launching its in-house digital wallet Chivo, purchasing around 1,801 Bitcoin for its reserves, and announcing plans to issue a $1 billion Bitcoin bond. A portion of the bond will supposedly fund El Salvador’s new city dedicated to the number one crypto asset, “Bitcoin City.”
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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