World Bank Rejects Helping El Salvador Implement BTC

Reading Time: < 1 minute

The World Bank, which had received a request from El Salvador to help the country implement Bitcoin as the second legal tender in the country, has said it cannot do it because of environmental and transparency shortcomings, Reuters reports.

Last week, the Central American country passed a law that recognized the leading cryptocurrency as legal tender. As a result, the coin would become the second official currency in El Salvador, coexisting with the US dollar.

After passing the law, the country needs to adapt the payments infrastructure so that Bitcoin can actually be used to pay for goods and services. However, local companies have said they will not do so unless they receive demand from customers.

It looks like the authorities of the country have contacted the World Bank for help, as confirmed by the institution. However, the bank is concerned about the lack of transparency of the coin as well as its environmental impact, so it has decided to reject helping the country on its transition to BTC:

“We are committed to helping El Salvador in numerous ways including for currency transparency and regulatory processes. While the government did approach us for assistance on bitcoin, this is not something the World Bank can support given the environmental and transparency shortcomings.”