Representatives of 44 banking institutions gathered in El Salvador for a summit on financial inclusion.The president, Nayib Bukele, has focused on bitcoin, but central banks have not spoken only about that.
Some have gone so far as to speak of the “Bitcoin Davos”, in reference to the famous world economic forum.Representatives of 44 central banks and financial institutions were invited to El Salvador, and President Nayib Bukele featured on Twitter their coming as a strong signal for the adoption of bitcoin around the world.In the absence of a clear announcement, many had interpreted the conference to be specifically about cryptocurrency.
However, this was not really the case: it was above all a summit organized by AFI, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (Alliance for Financial Inclusion), a Malaysian organization.The purpose of the gathering was to discuss the best ways to ensure greater banking inclusion — and while part of the discussion focused on bitcoin, it was not a meeting entirely dedicated to crypto adoption.
currencies.
What did the bankers talk about?
It was the central bank of Paraguay, whose representative was part of the trip, which first issued a press release to correct the situation.
In its message, the institution explains that “ the meeting does not focus on crypto-currencies », and recalled that crypto-assets were not considered legal currencies in the country.” The central bank of Paraguay does not intend to discuss the adoption of cryptocurrencies within the framework of the AFI “.
So what did the bankers talk about? According to the AFI program, during this ” week of events “, the participants have” held discussions on promoting digital ecosystems and financial innovations “, in order to ” provide more help to small businesses, women and low-wage individuals “.
Band members also spoke of “ the emergence and regulation of digital private currencies in developing countries i.e.
cryptocurrencies, but also digital assets and stableboins.Not much discussion of central bank plans to accept bitcoin as legal tender, then.
Central Bank Representatives Tried Bitcoin
Claims that the meeting was devoted to crypto-currencies should therefore be taken with a grain of salt.
It is true, however, that a panel was organized to talk about the profits of bitcoin, presented by Roman Martinez and Nicolas Burtey, the two entrepreneurs behind Bitcoin Beach (the Salvadoran resort where bitcoin was first used).They spoke at length about the history of the place, and the payment systems developed.
Representatives of financial institutions even visited Bitcoin Beach at the end of their stay to test cryptocurrency payments for themselves.Galoy, the company that developed the crypto wallets for Bitcoin Beach, says that the members of the group were able to ” see what bitcoin does for communities excluded from the banking system current “.And Nayib Bukele even took advantage of the visit to make them take a break, and make them shout “ bitcoin “.
Even if the members of the AFI do not currently intend to all recognize bitcoin as legal tender, the symbol is strong.Global financial institutions have historically opposed cryptocurrencies.The IMF criticized Salvador’s plan to adopt bitcoin, saying the country was “ gone too far “, and Christine Largarde, the president of the European Central Bank, recently said that crypto-assets do not “ were worth nothing “..