Last September 2021, El Salvador approved the Bitcoin Law, which made the first cryptocurrency by market capitalization legal tender.
The controversial law has earned the president Nayib Bukele criticism from some US legislators and also from the International Monetary Fund, who expressed to the president their concerns about the problems of stability and financial integration which could result from the implementation of Bitcoin as legal tender.
However, El Salvador is not alone in this race for Bitcoin adoption and recently, two new countries have joined it: Malaysia and Honduras.
Honduras is the closest to El Salvador
Honduras could be the second country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. President Xiaomara Castro has repeatedly said that El Salvador should not be the only Latin American country to “escape the hegemony of the dollar.” Castro also intends to follow in the footsteps of its neighbor El Salvador and begin a race toward “the first world.”
President Castro is expected to provide more details on the next steps of Bitcoin adoption in the coming days.
The Central American country is following a path of widespread adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, similar to what El Salvador experienced. In August 2021, the first Bitcoin and Ethereum ATM was installed in the nation's capital, Tegucigalpa.
Malaysia could be the next country to adopt Bitcoin
But it is not only Latin America that is interested in adopting Bitcoin as legal tender; Malaysia, the Southeast Asian giant, has also shown its intentions to make Bitcoin legal tender.
In this regard, Zahidi Zainul Abidin, Malaysia's Minister of Communications, has proposed the adoption of cryptocurrency as legal tender and means of payment in the country.
In this way, the minister hopes that the country's government will accept the proposal, while explaining that an investigation is being carried out into what the best way to legalize the currency and that they are looking for ways to “involve youth in the project.”
The minister is aware of the problems and controversy that the adoption of cryptocurrency has raised in El Salvador. However, he believes that the long-term benefits will be enough to convince detractors. Zainul Abidin hopes that Cryptocurrency adoption attracts large numbers of tourists, as has happened in El Salvador.
The case of Malaysia seems complicated, as the country has traditionally been anti-cryptocurrency. In fact, last summer the Malaysian government confiscated more than a thousand cryptocurrency mining devices, which were publicly destroyed, due to high electricity consumption and problems with energy theft.
Updated 25/03: Malaysia's Deputy Finance Minister said at Thursday's parliamentary session that the country will not recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tender as they do not believe they represent a payment system due to the structural problems of cryptocurrencies such as price volatility, exposure to cyber threats, and their negative impact on the environment.
However, the Central Bank of Malaysia will continue to actively work towards creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
