Although excitement is growing throughout Latin America after El Salvador took the plunge, Mexico's president says his country will not be following suit.
Mexico’s president has said that the country has no plans to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender — despite growing interest across Latin America.
Speaking at a news conference, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador warned against innovating too much in financial management — and said that it was unnecessary for the government to explore a broader role for cryptocurrencies.
But as Decrypt noted, a number of rival politicians think that Mexico should embrace BTC in the same way El Salvador has — arguing that both countries are facing a similar economic climate.
Undaunted, a number of other countries in the region are exploring how to integrate Bitcoin into their economies. A proposed law in Paraguay is seeking to regulate crypto mining and trading, but some advocates have argued this bill does not go far enough. Brazil is also toying with the idea of embracing BTC as a payment method — and Venezuela, a country that has suffered rampant hyperinflation with its local fiat currency, has been especially forward-thinking when it comes to crypto.
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Stubborn Resistance
One of Mexico’s richest men, Ricardo Salinos Pliego, is among those who is enthusiastic about Bitcoin — revealing last November that 10% of his liquid portfolio is devoted to the world’s biggest cryptocurrency.
Back in June, he even revealed that his banking business was attempting to find ways to accept Bitcoin, but he ended up facing a swift rebuke from the country’s central bank. A statement given to Reuters at the time said:
“The financial authorities reiterate their warnings... on the risks inherent in the use of so-called ‘virtual assets’ as a means of exchange, as a store of value or as another form of investment. The country’s financial institutions are not authorized to carry out and offer to the public operations with virtual assets, such as Bitcoin, Ether, XRP.”
