Nayib Bukele

El Salvador's Volcano Bond gets regulatory approval, targets Q1 launch

The Volcano Bond was approved by the country’s Digital Assets Commission on Dec. 11, with issuance expected in Q1, 2024.

El Salvador’s long-anticipated Bitcoin bonds, also known as “Volcano Bonds,” have reportedly received the regulatory nod for a launch in early 2024.

The Volcano Bond was reportedly approved by El Salvador’s Digital Assets Commission and is anticipated to launch during the first quarter of 2024, according to a Dec. 11 statement from The National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC).

The approval comes nearly 21 months after the country’s former finance minister Alejandro Zelaya said the Volcano Bond would launch in mid March, 2022.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin bond gets regulatory approval, targets Q1 launch

The Volcano Bond was approved by the country’s Digital Assets Commission on Dec. 11, with issuance expected in Q1 2024.

El Salvador’s long-anticipated Bitcoin bonds, also known as “Volcano Bonds,” have reportedly received the regulatory nod for a launch in early 2024.

The Volcano Bond was approved by El Salvador’s Digital Assets Commission and is anticipated to launch during the first quarter of 2024, according to a Dec. 11 statement from The National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC).

The approval comes nearly 21 months after the country’s former finance minister, Alejandro Zelaya, said the Volcano Bond would launch in mid-March 2022.

Less than 2% of El Salvador’s population holds crypto: Report

According to a recent report, crypto enthusiasm in El Salvador lags behind despite the country’s ongoing pro-crypto initiatives.

Despite the continuous efforts by the government of El Salvador to promote widespread cryptocurrency adoption within the nation, a recent CoinGecko report highlighted the limited number of crypto owners in the country.

Published on Dec. 7, the report reiterates that El Salvador stands alone as the only country in the world actively using crypto as legal tender. However, a relatively small percentage of its population currently holds Bitcoin (BTC):

According to data from Triple-A, approximately 109,175 people own Bitcoin in El Salvador, which has a population of 6.36 million — approximately 1.72%.

Nayib Bukele steps down as El Salvador’s President ahead of re-election bid

Acting President Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara, the first female head of state for El Salvador, took office on Dec. 1 and is expected to serve until June 2024.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who was behind legislation recognizing Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in the country, has stepped down from office to campaign.

On Dec.

“Current state of democracy in El Salvador: the office of the President of the Republic will be occupied by a person for whom no one has ever voted,” said Héctor Silva, candidate for the mayor’s office of San Salvador, on X.

El legado correcto

The right legacy
https://t.co/dO2c0ZtQUN

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) November 29, 2023

Bukele, who first took office in June 2019, quickly became known for his attempts to reduce the homicide rate in El Salvador — one of the highest in the world at the time — as well as his pro-crypto policies. He advocated for the Salvadoran government to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021 and pushed for the creation of a volcano-powered ‘Bitcoin City’ in the country.

Though the homicide rate under Bukele has dropped significantly, many critics have pointed to El Salvador violating laws on human rights in its attempts to crack down on gang activity.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin wallet Chivo scores $52M in remittances in 2022

El Salvador payment app Chivo processed $52 million in remittances over the past six months, as expatriates make use of commission-free BTC transfers.

Salvadorans living abroad hsent over $50 million in remittances from January to May this year, according to the El Salvador Central Reserve Bank.

Douglas Rodríguez, president of the El Salvador central bank, unpacked the general economic outlook for the country on the local television news program Frente a Frente on Wednesday.

A major takeaway was the $52 million of remittances processed by national digital wallet service Chivo through the first five months of the year. This marks a 3.9%, $118 million increase in value when compared to the same period in 2021.

Chivo was launched in September 2021 as the Central American country became the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender. The launch of the app reportedly attracted more than 2 million users in less than a month, leading to major teething problems for the state-endorsed payment platform.

The government-sanctioned payment service provider was relaunched in February this year, necessitated by the onboarding of an estimated 4 million users looking to make use of low fees for payments and transfers made in BTC. American cryptocurrency exchange software firm AlphaPoint came onboard to address scaling and stability issues.

Chivo offers users commission-free transfers and payments in BTC and U.S. dollars. El Salvador’s president and Bitcoin proponent Nayib Bukele has previously claimed the app will save citizens some $400 million in annual commissions spent using conventional remittance and payment service providers in the country.

The application also makes use of the Bitcoin layer-2 payment protocol Lightning Network, which provides low-fee BTC transactions. The adoption of Bitcoin and Chivo in El Salvador has had a measurable effect on the uptick in Lightning Network transaction volumes — with a 400% increase in payment volume over the past year.