El Salvador is opening a new Bitcoin embassy in Texas. The first one was established in October 2022 with an economic cooperation agreement with the City of Lugano in Switzerland.
El Salvador and its second Bitcoin embassy in Texas
El Salvador’s Ambassador in the US, Milena Mayorga, posted a tweet announcing the Central American country’s second Bitcoin embassy, this time with the state of Texas.
Gracias al Secretario Joe Esparza @TXsecofstate por recibirnos. Nos compartió el siguiente dato importante:
En el 2022, El Salvador y el Estado de Texas tuvo un intercambio comercial de $1,244,636,983. pic.twitter.com/VkZa36MNgz
— Milena Mayorga (@MilenaMayorga) February 14, 2023
Basically, the Ambassador talked about her meeting with Joe Esparza, deputy secretary of the Texas government, and how they discussed Bitcoin and the expansion of trade and economic exchange projects.
Not only that, Mayorga also pointed out that in 2022 the Republic of El Salvador and the State of Texas recorded a trade exchange of almost $1.25 billion.
It has already been almost 1.5 years since El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender in the country and now already has 2 BTC embassies: the first with the City of Lugano in Switzerland and the second now with the State of Texas.
The general situation of Bitcoin in Texas
Recently, Texas has been in the news for submitting a proposal to allow Bitcoin to be an authorized state investment.
Then again, it is now well known how Texas has always been at the forefront of blockchain and Bitcoin adoption, showing its complete support for the industry.
Not only that, Texas is also famous for becoming a hub for several Bitcoin mining companies, continuing to promote, advance, and provide a platform for BTC that it considers a cutting-edge innovation for the future.
The new proposal to make BTC an authorized state investment was presented to members of the state legislature and focuses on ensuring a strategic statewide approach to expanding the blockchain industry internally.
That report is 84 pages long and also discusses the usefulness of cryptocurrency as a reserve currency for the government, citing examples of other states such as El Salvador that have made it legal tender.
El Salvador and its first Bitcoin embassy in Lugano, Switzerland
It was October 2022, when Lugano Mayor Michele Foletti and Milena Mayorga formalized the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for economic cooperation between the City of Lugano and the Republic of El Salvador.
A first and actual Bitcoin Embassy of El Salvador in Lugano, which involves the physical presence of an El Salvador government representative on the territory of Lugano.
The purpose is to foster cooperation with educational and research institutions, encouraging the development of initiatives related to Blockchain and Bitcoin.
The announcement of this Memorandum of Understanding was made during the opening of the Plan B Forum, an event in Lugano that brought together leading international experts in Bitcoin and Blockchain.
On the other hand, Plan B was founded by Tether and the city of Lugano. During the October event, Plan B had announced a new partnership with GoCrypto to officially bring Bitcoin, Tether and LVGA payments to the Swiss city, already involving McDonald’s and more.
More specifically, by Bitcoin payments they mean Bitcoin Lightning (BTC), Tether (USDT) and by LVGA the local token in Lugano.
El Salvador and the launch of Bitcoin bonds
Returning to El Salvador, there was a recent analysis of the situation regarding its not-yet-launched Bitcoin bonds, which were announced as early as last November 2021, two months after making BTC legal tender in the country and, more importantly, in the midst of a price bubble.
The announcement spoke of a probable launch during March 2022 although it then it didn’t happen, despite it being stated that there were already $500 million in requests.
In reality, what El Salvador was already aiming for at that time was to raise a billion dollars, to be allocated to the implementation of Bitcoin City and its investments.
In hindsight, if the first launch had happened, and the funds that would have been raised from Bitcoin bonds would have been invested at that time in BTC, they would have experienced the long crypto winter that characterized all of 2022.
Which is why there has probably been this great anticipation of the launch of the infamous Bitcoin bonds that, perhaps, may finally be launched during this 2023.
Expecting this is the Bitfinex crypto-exchange, the place where El Salvador’s bond tokens created by the specialized company Blockstream will then be listed, so that they can then be purchased by investors.
And indeed, Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex, is reported to have said that there should be sufficient market demand at this time for the Central American country to raise the full billion dollars it intends to collect from the bond issue.
BTC’s price performance over the past month
At the time of writing, BTC is worth $22,150, up from $21,150 last month, although during these 30 days BTC had touched $24,157.
This chart of BTC’s price over the past month basically sees 3 price levels:
- up to 20/1 the average price level was $21,150;
- from 20/1 to 10/2 the average price has hovered around $23,500;
- from 10/2 to today the price has returned to $22,100;
Some talked about BTC’s Death Cross of the last week, using this technical term as a signal of potential price trend change.
Others, however, have come out with predictions about the price of BTC in 2025. These include businessman Robert Kiyosaki, who explained how Bitcoin could reach a price of $500,000 by 2025, partly “thanks” to the Fed.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2023/02/15/el-salvador-bitcoin-embassy-texas/