El Salvador to use bitcoin profits to build animal hospital
President Nayib Bukele announced that bitcoin profits will help "our furry friends”
Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, has announced that he plans to invest part of the $4m (£2.9m) worth of profits the country has gained from its bitcoin holdings to build a new veterinary hospital in the capital city, San Salvador.
On Twitter, the president said the country would be using the profits from the state-operated bitcoin trust but declaring he would not be selling any of the 700 BTC that has been acquired for the trust, which was created to facilitate conversion between bitcoin and the US dollar for Chivo Wallet users.
The Chivo Wallet is what the nation has been using to support bitcoin payments within the country since it made the leading cryptocurrency legal tender on 7 September.
Bukele said the new veterinary hospital will have four operating rooms, four emergency clinics and 19 offices, and will be able to handle 384 consultations, more than 100 emergencies, 64 surgeries and 32 X-rays every day.
The president said: “We decided to invest a part of that money in this: a veterinary hospital for our furry friends,” and released a video of what the new veterinary hospital will look like.
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Buterin criticises move to make BTC mandatory
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, recently spoke out against El Salvador’s move to make it compulsory for businesses to accept bitcoin as payment. Buterin responded to a Reddit article entitled Unpopular opinion: El Salvador President Mr Nayab Bukele should not be praised by Crypto community’
Buterin said: “Nothing unpopular about this opinion. Making it mandatory for businesses to accept a specific cryptocurrency is contrary to the ideals of freedom that are supposed to be so important to the crypto space.”
The Ethereum co-founder also called the move “reckless and risks a large number of innocent people getting hacked or scammed,” due to the fact no prior education was made available to El Salvador regarding bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.
Chivo Wallet users to get gas price discount
At the end of September, Bukele tweeted that Chivo Wallet users will be entitled to cheaper gas prices as they will receive a $0.20 discount on a gallon of gas.
The president announced the partnership between the largest gas stations in the country. He believes this move will help to ease increases in international fuel costs.
