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Bitcoin is now legal tender in El Salvador

The country becomes the first to adopt the cryptocurrency officially.

Rae Hodge Former senior editor
Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.
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In a supermajority vote by its Congress, El Salvador has become the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. On Wednesday morning, President Nayib Bukele sent the bill to Congress, where the measure passed the legislature with 62 of the body's 84 votes. News of the move boosted Bitcoin's exchange rate value by 5%. 

Although it is unclear how El Salvador will integrate the cryptocurrency into its economy, Bitcoin exchanges will no longer be subject to the country's capital gains tax. Prices can now be displayed in Bitcoin, and the country will accept Bitcoin for resident tax contribution payments. 

"The purpose of this law is to regulate bitcoin as unrestricted legal tender with liberating power, unlimited in any transaction, and to any title that public or private natural or legal persons require carrying out," the law reads.

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