El Salvador Buys 200 Bitcoins as the Digital Currency Becomes Legal Tender -

"El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as a national currency, kicking off a radical monetary experiment that could pose risks to the fragile economy."

Why this is important: The world’s first nationwide digital asset experiment has begun, as El Salvador is officially the first country to consider a digital asset a national currency. “The law designating bitcoin as legal tender says that all ‘economic agents' shall accept [it] as payment [and] … that tax payments can be made in bitcoin." While some are excited for this opportunity, some have asked for a repeal of the law due to the volatile nature of digital assets. Oddly enough, the day that El Salvador announced that bitcoin was officially its national currency, the price of many crypto assets plummeted. There are many questions left unanswered in the infancy of this law. Perhaps one of the most important is how to adapt to the rising and falling of bitcoin’s value. One person highlighted a particularly difficult problem that the El Salvadoran government will face when they asked, “How do we know what to collect in taxes when bitcoin goes up and bitcoin goes down?” With all of El Salvador’s triumphs and fails regarding its new national currency, the rest of the world is about to learn a lot about whether digital assets can be a viable currency.