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source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57373058 On this breaking news, the El Salvador president Nayib Bukele announced a proposal to make Bitcoin legal tender. Not just legalized currency, but also a legal tender, to be used alongside other currencies like the US dollar. And with an apparent majority of allies in that particular country's legislature, the chances are quite high that such a proposal will be accepted without much internal resistance. How such a policy is going to be implemented via infrastructures, information dissemination, etc. may be discussed at a later time. To make things short, El Salvador plans to stop putting all its eggs into one basket (the US dollar in this case, and fiat in general) by going into cryptocurrencies. And apparently they "don't trust themselves" into making their own crypto coin like what Venezuela has done before, so they'll adopt Bitcoin instead. Smart move IMO. And cryptocurrency adoption will most likely not end to just Bitcoin. The possibility of adopting other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Tron is open, for more scalability options offered by other currencies Bitcoin currently has trouble with. Details are provided in the link above. This news is quite significant. Becoming the first country to fully adopt an existing cryptocurrency (NOT making a CBDC like other countries are attempting) has its own perks. For one thing, this paves the way for business involved in cryptocurrencies to set up operations in the country. Crypto miners from China in particular are currently seeking out possible safer havens due to alleged "persecutions" they've been getting recently, and if El Salvador can provide enough energy for these miners, it can become a prime crypto mining hub. Another thing is the local population becoming a potential market for crypto businesses. Remittances from oversees adds significantly to El Salvador's economy and crypto coins that can provide quicker and cheaper solutions than traditional transactions will become the fore. One of the challenges to be faced is to how to educate the local population about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and how to protect them from crypto-related fraud. Time will tell whether the measures to be put up by the government in the future will prove to be effective and resilient enough to withstand that challenge. More analysis on this is provided on this link from Coindesk. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-el-salvadors-legal-tender

With El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender just a year ago, another country has also adopted the cryptocurrency: Central African Republic (CAR) has become the first African country and the second country overall to do so. CAR has the CFA franc for its fiat currency, and apparently it and some other African countries are not happy with using it as it is a reminder of the colonial times. Therefore, the decision to adopt Bitcoin can be seen as a way of releasing themselves from CFA while avoiding to create their own currency with a risk of spiraling into hyperinflation. But unlike El Salvador which more or less has the necessary digital infrastructure to support cryptocurrency adoption, CAR is being criticized for the utter lack of such infrastructure. The likely scenario would be that the adoption would serve for big businesses to use Bitcoin without much fear of legal repercussions, and not much else. Until the issue of digital infrastructure is fixed, the use of Bitcoin for CAR's ordinary household uses is yet too far to become real. More details of this news can be read here: source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61248809