El Salvador proposes to offer citizenship to foreign investors
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced via Twitter that he had sent a package of 52 legal reforms to Congress, including a proposal to grant citizenship in exchange for investment.
I’m sending 52 legal reforms to congress, to remove red tape, reduce bureaucracy, create tax incentives, citizenship in exchange for investments, new securities laws, stability contracts, etc.
— Nayib Bukele 🇸🇻 (@nayibbukele) February 20, 2022
The plan is simple: as the world falls into tyranny, we’ll create a haven for freedom.
The measure shows that the cryptocurrency adoption strategy has worked, which has made the country's government double its bet on the technology.
Recently, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee convened the State Department to investigate the legal status of bitcoin in El Salvador, with senators stating that the adoption of bitcoin “opens the door to money laundering cartels and harms the interests of USA". In response, Nayib Bukele stated that: “You have no jurisdiction over a sovereign and independent nation”.
Last September, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as its legal tender in addition to the dollar, in a move criticized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Shortly after, the president announced the construction of “Bitcoin City”, exempt from income and property tax. Now the government is moving towards citizenship through investments.
El Salvador holds at least 1,801 bitcoins, with a current value of around $72 million.
