The International Monetary Fund (IMF) remains dissatisfied with El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment, but intends to continue working with the country.
Reuters reports that at a press conference on Thursday, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozak said the IMF had recommended “limiting public sector exposure to Bitcoin.”
El Salvador made Bitcoin its legal tender in 2021. The IMF, which has been in talks with El Salvador for years about a fund support program to strengthen the country’s growth prospects, is one of Bitcoin’s most vocal critics. Move.
“Our recommendation is to narrow the scope of Bitcoin law, strengthen the regulatory framework and oversight of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and limit public sector exposure to Bitcoin,” Kozak said Thursday. He is said to have said.
Neither the IMF nor El Salvadoran government spokespeople immediately responded to Decrypto’s questions.
The IMF warned in 2021 that El Salvador’s move to make Bitcoin legal tender in the country would raise “a number of macroeconomic, fiscal, and legal issues.”
However, the company acknowledged in August that many of the risks of the Bitcoin experiment “have not yet materialized.”
The country’s leader, President Nayib Boukre, has consistently ignored concerns institutions and politicians have about the project, even tweeting memes mocking the IMF’s complaints.
President Boucle, who has been criticized as a dictator by human rights groups and praised by liberals and conservatives for making El Salvador safer, said in an August interview with TIME that the Bitcoin experiment was a no-no. I admitted that I had had enough.
The Bitcoin Act requires companies in the small Central American country to accept Bitcoin if they have the technical means to do so. The government has also been buying Bitcoin in large quantities, with President Bukele claiming he buys it “naked” or “in the toilet.”
Back in 2021, Salvadorans were given $30 in free Bitcoin through their government’s cryptocurrency wallet. However, Decrypt and survey polls have found that many citizens are uninterested in receiving and using this asset.
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