Professionals from El Salvador Call for the Repeal of the Bitcoin Law

The professionals are calling on the rest of the professionals in the country to join the petition. More than 80 names appear on the list in support of the statement.

In a statement released on June 25, a group of Salvadoran professionals, academics, and researchers requested the repeal of the Bitcoin Law, considering that it does not fulfill the basic requirements due to the unpredictable volatility that always surrounds bitcoin.

The letter, backed by the names of more than 80 people, appeared on Twitter recently. Ricardo Castaneda Ancheta, a Salvadoran economist who works as a professional in his area at the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies posted the letter.

In the text, a series of observations question the new Law, sanctioned on June 9. The text presents a list of warnings about the possible repercussions of having bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in El Salvador.

According to the text, the government must not take the risk and guarantee cryptocurrency convertibility, which would receive financing from tax collection. They refer to the USD 150 million trust fund to receive management from the Development Bank, announced by President Nayib Bukele.

These groups of professionals also aim at the environmental risks of turning the country into a center for cryptocurrency mining, even though the project proposed so far calls for renewable energy use from volcanoes (geothermal generation).

New Ways to Fight against Crypto Crime

The signatories repeat one of the ideas that bitcoin detractors tend to use, pointing out that El Salvador could become a tax haven and a money-laundering center. It states that the cryptocurrency would pave new ways to win the war against financial crimes, tax evasion, ransomware attacks, and the creation of speculative bubbles.

In that sense, they mention the positions against Bitcoin by some winners of Nobel prizes in Economics and researchers at an international level. They even cite the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which has openly rejected cryptocurrencies, calling for the creation of central bank digital currencies.

However, the professionals want to avoid a bitcoinization of the Salvadoran economy, arguing that the Central Reserve Bank will not follow up transactions on the blockchain. Consequently, they invite the professionals in the country to join the list of signatories who ask to repeal the Bitcoin Law.

Twitter Users had Shown Mixed Reactions about the New Measure

The responses to Castaneda and his tweet appeared instantly, and the resulting reactions had shown a division among Salvadorans in opinion on the bitcoin issue.

Some users had shown their support for the statement and even called for protests against the current measure. But, another faction of users criticized the content of the text and questioned the credibility of the signatories.

In this regard, the tweeter identified as @DanyAlos comments: “How much fear and ignorance appear in those lines! It reminds me of those who also advocated banning the internet in its early years of mass adoption for the same reasons that today oppose Bitcoin.”

By: Jenson Nuñez