Forty-four central bankers from developing nations around the world are meeting in El Salvador. It is happening this week to discuss financial inclusion, small and medium-sized business funding, and Bitcoin (BTC).
Central bank delegates from Ghana to Burundi, Jordan to the Maldives, and Pakistan to Costa Rica arrived in San Salvador. At the invitation of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, they all came for the conference.
El Salvador “plants seeds” among central bankers
Meanwhile, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion will host the three-day conference. It is a global policy leadership alliance, in collaboration with El Salvador’s central bank.
El Salvador se enorgullece de recibir a representantes de 44 bancos centrales y autoridades financieras para conocer sobre la implementación del Bitcoin y políticas para impulsar la Inclusión Financiera. https://t.co/9TCIK40QL2
— Douglas Rodríguez 🇸🇻 (@douglas_rdzf) May 16, 2022
While tweeting a group selfie of the leaders, Rodriguez’s boss, President Bukele, said he was “planting seeds” among the 44 delegates.
Educating central bank delegates
The Bitcoin Beach project team was also present, ready to teach the central bankers. Bitcoin Beach, El Zonte, was the genesis of the Bitcoin Law, a grassroots campaign that led to the adoption of Bitcoin by the first nation.
Nicolas Burtey, co-founder of Galoy Money, which created the Bitcoin Beach wallet, and his team spent the day engaging with central bank delegates and demonstrating how to utilize Bitcoin Lightning wallets and transmit payments. The photos from the event are incredible, with central bankers carefully learning how to transmit payments and build wallets.
Meanwhile, only two countries have recognized Bitcoin as legal tender so far. Those are El Salvador, obviously, and, more recently, the Central African Republic. The latter was chastised by African central banks for adopting cryptocurrencies.
El Salvador’s financial inclusion conference, according to some observers, such as Dan Tapiero of investment firm 10T Holdings, is historic. He suggests that the U.S. may have to catch up.