The move would make the Central American
nation the first in the world to formally accept the cryptocurrency as legal
money and would "allow the financial inclusion of thousands of people who
are outside the legal economy," Bukele said.
"Next week, I will send to Congress a
bill that makes Bitcoin legal money," the populist leader said during a
video message to the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida.
The bill aims to create jobs, he said, in a
country where "70 percent of the population does not have a bank account
and works in the informal economy."
The El Salvador government is yet to give
details of the bill, which will require approval from a parliament dominated by
the president's allies.
Remittances from Salvadorans working
overseas represent a major chunk of the economy -- equivalent to roughly 22
percent of Gross Domestic Product.
In 2020, remittances to the country totaled
$5.9 billion, according to official reports.
According to Bukele, bitcoin represented
"the fastest growing way to transfer" those billions of dollars in
remittances and to prevent millions from being lost to intermediaries.
"Thanks to the use of bitcoin, the
amount received by more than a million low-income families increases by several
billion dollars every year," said the president.
"This improves life and the future of
millions of people."
The cryptocurrency market grew to more than
$2.5 trillion in mid-May 2020, according to the Coinmarketcap page, driven by
interest from increasingly serious investors from Wall Street to Silicon
Valley.
But the volatility of bitcoin -- currently
priced at $36,127 -- and its murky legal status has raised questions about
whether it could ever replace fiat currency in day-to-day transactions.