El Salvador, the only country in which bitcoin is a legal tender, is going to build an entire city based on the largest cryptocurrency, President Nayib Bukele said in a Saturday night presentation at Bitcoin Week in El Salvador.
“Bitcoin City” will be located along the Gulf of Fonseca near a volcano. The government plans on locating a power plant by the volcano to provide energy for both the city and bitcoin mining, the president said.
According to Bukele, Bitcoin City will be a full-fledged metropolis with residential and commercial areas, restaurants, an airport as well as a port and rail service. The city will be laid out in a circle (like a coin) and in the city center will be a plaza that will be host to a huge bitcoin symbol. The city will have no income, property, capital gains or payroll taxes.
Bukele also said El Salvador plans on issuing $1 billion US “bitcoin bond,” a tokenized financial instrument developed by Blockstream, on the Liquid Network. Of that amount, $500 million will be used to help construct needed energy and bitcoin mining infrastructure and $500 million to buy even more bitcoin. At the cryptocurrency’s recent trading price of about $59,000, that would bring the country’s treasury stash to just under 2,000 bitcoins.
El Salvador intends to create a securities law and grant a license to Bitfinex Securities to process the issuance, Blockstream said in a release.
Read more: Almost a Third of Salvadorans Are Using the Bitcoin Wallet, Bukele Says
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