LatinNews Daily - 22 November 2021

* El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has announced plans to build the first ever ‘Bitcoin City’ in El Salvador. President Bukele, whose government implemented a controversial law in September making cryptocurrency bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador, was speaking at an event closing a week-long promotion of bitcoin in El Salvador. He said that the new city would be built in La Unión department, to take advantage of energy from the Conchagua volcano. Bukele has previously said that power derived from volcanoes would be used for bitcoin mining – the process by which virtual coins are generated (and which has drawn major criticism due to its impact on the environment as a result of the huge amounts of energy needed to power the computers that generate the cryptocurrency). Bukele said that the new city would obtain geothermal power from the volcano and not levy any taxes except for value-added tax (VAT). He said that half of revenue from VAT would be used to fund bonds that the government plans to issue to build the city, and the other half would pay for municipal services. He added that El Salvador planned to issue the initial bonds in 2022.

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