The Bitcoin adoption rate is picking up steam as other Central American countries indicate that it’s a good idea to ditch their fiat currency for Bitcoin.
I don’t blame them.
Look at their currency charts – it's straight out of a nightmare.
The Mexican Peso for instance has gone from 10 Pesos to $1 to now 20.7 pesos to $1 today.
Not a good deal if you’re holding pesos in the bank.
Much of the same phenomenon is echoed around the region.
Recently, Indira Kempis, a senator from the state of Nuevo Leon in Mexico, wants to make her country the second in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, even though it will be hard to get over the line.
She praised Bitcoin's attributes as an inclusive currency that benefits the unbanked. She said she has been consulting with people knowledgeable in the asset, and now she wants to use her political influence to promote the usability of Bitcoin in all of Mexico.
And trust me – there are a lot of Mexicans in Mexico without access to the financial system and this would be the way to cure the problem.
If the price of Bitcoin keeps rising long-term, many of these poorer Central American countries will regret not following down the same path as El Salvador.
So there is a little bit of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) with out-of-the-box legislators believing it’s a panacea to their financial woes.
Following El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's announcement that Bitcoin would be adopted as legal tender in his country, the congresswoman was one of a group of politicians whose interest has been piqued.
This would be major news if legislators could coalesce around these crypto ideas.
On another bullish side note, major crypto exchanges are adding more services to Mexico as Coinbase Global (COIN) said it is launching a pilot program to allow cryptocurrency recipients in Mexico to cash out their funds in pesos, a move aimed at shaking up the $700 billion global remittance market.
If COIN can penetrate the Mexican remittance market, this would be extremely bearish for Western Union (WU).
Crypto recipients in Mexico can now generate a redemption code on their Coinbase app that can be used to receive cash at 37,000 retail and convenience stores across Mexico.
The service will be free of charge through March 31, after which customers will be charged a "nominal fee that’s still 25-50% cheaper" than traditional international payment options.
Even Mexico’s third-richest billionaire, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, is pushing the adoption of Bitcoin in Mexico.
Salinas is the founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a group of companies with interests in telecommunications, media, financial services, and retail stores.
He tweeted:
You have to buy bitcoin (keep buying when the price is low), then just hold your BTC, forget about selling … Trust me you’re going to thank me later.
Bitcoin is on sale right now as it retraces from its highs of $65,000 as US Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated we are at the beginning of a Fed tightening cycle.
Bitcoin has found some stability in the $40,000 range and ironically, tech stocks have been more volatile than crypto lately.
One of the gripes of Bitcoin was that it fluctuates too much, but as this asset matures, volatility will gradually subside.
Bitcoin is now a short-term buy at these levels as the foreign war has forced capital into crypto.
Long term, imagine if all of Central and South America adopted Bitcoin as their national currency.
They might finally be able to balance their annual budgets.
