The CoinGeek Pulse Episode 58: El Salvador flip-flops on BTC, Fed turns sights on stablecoins, CryptoFights hits 2M transactions

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The world’s first country to adopt BTC as legal tender is now preparing for its rollout this coming September but pulled back from requiring the nation’s residents from using the digital currency.

Earlier this week, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele confirmed on Twitter that the use of BTC as legal tender would not be mandatory, saying that the government would not force residents to accept BTC as a form of payment. This is in contrast to a portion of the country’s Bitcoin Law, which states all merchants must accept BTC as a form of payment in acquiring goods or services. 

“If someone wants to continue to carry cash, not receive a sign-on bonus, not win over customers who have bitcoin, not grow their business and pay commission on remittances, they can continue to do so,” tweeted President Bukele.

La oposición torpe siempre juega ajedrez de un paso.

Han apostado todo a meterle miedo a la población sobre la #LeyBitcoin y puede que logren algo, pero solo hasta el 7 de septiembre.

Una vez en vigencia, la gente verá los beneficios, quedarán como mentirosos y perderán doble😉

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) August 23, 2021

President Bukele shared on his tweet a photo of BTC ATMs, stating that the country has installed hundreds of these and has prepped banks to handle digital currency transactions. He also confirmed that Chivo, the country’s official bitcoin wallet will be out on Sept 7.

In June this year, El Salvador’s Congress approved Bukele’s proposal to adopt BTC as legal tender.

Meanwhile in the United States, pressure on the digital currency industry mounts as the Federal Reserve raises more concerns.

The recent Federal Reserve meeting discussed the potential risk of stablecoins to the country’s financial stability. The Fed likened stablecoins to prime money funds, describing that they have the same structural maturity and liquidity, transformational vulnerabilities but with less transparency.

These comments came after previous statements made by Fed Chair Jerome Powell that a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) has the potential to eliminate the need for stablecoins.

Meanwhile, a letter mentioning investigative materials on Binance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was leaked online. The letter signed by FOIA Branch Chief Lizzette Katilius, and addressed to Aaron Greenspan from Plainsite, was a response to Greenspan’s request in July for any investigative documents regarding Binance. Plainsite is a U.S.-based website dedicated to legal data transparency advocacy. 

“The commission doesn’t disclose the existence or non-existence of an investigation or information unless made a matter of public record in proceedings brought before the Commission or in the courts,” Katilius responded.

In other news, Binance tweeted early this week about allegations of market manipulation made against their company. The company clarified that they have never traded against their users nor manipulated the market and “never will.”

BSV blockchain-based game CryptoFights is back with a bang! The game quickly hit a million of transactions right out of the gate after its relaunch last weekend. Its transactions reached an all-time high of 2 million within 24 hours on Aug 23. This is more than the transactions on the entire Ethereum network.

CryptoFights is a highly entertaining and revenue-generating game that produces massive transactions, storing large amounts of data on-chain. This makes the blockchain-based game a real business. The game was built on BSV, the world’s largest public blockchain by all major utility metrics such as data storage and daily transaction volume, scaling ability and average block size.

This week, check out Jon Southurst’s The Bitcoin Bridge episode featuring the Women of BSV. Head on to the CoinGeek YouTube channel to watch the full episode.