World Bank Nixes El Salvador Bitcoin Help

As reported by Reuters, the World Bank has responded negatively to El Salvador’s request for help in fully implementing bitcoin as legal tender in the country, citing concerns about Bitcoin’s transparency and environmental impact.

“We are committed to helping El Salvador in numerous ways including for currency transparency and regulatory processes,” a World Bank spokesperson told Reuters via email. “While the government did approach us for assistance on bitcoin, this is not something the World Bank can support given the environmental and transparency shortcomings.”

The answer came hours after Salvadoran Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya announced that his country had requested technical assistance from the World Bank. According to Reuters, the government of El Salvador did not respond to its request for commenting on the bank’s decision.

It is unclear where the World Bank’s concerns come from, since it did not go into much detail, but they seem to demonstrate some degree of misunderstanding about Bitcoin. When it comes to transparency, Bitcoin’s open source, decentralized, permissionless public ledger is the de-facto standard. Meanwhile, it is hard to argue that the current monetary system nourished by fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking is transparent. Citizens around the world have limited access to detailed information regarding the current system’s inner workings. In contrast, Bitcoin is open for everyone to participate or analyze from the stands — it is the most transparent payment network in the world.

Source