Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, announced on May 15th that 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities from 44 countries were meeting to discuss “financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked and Bitcoin rollout and its benefits.”
The event dubbed the “Digital Financial Services & SME Finance Working Group Meetings” was hosted by The Central Bank of El Salvador for the first time in 2 years due to COVID-related pushbacks, with all invited countries being a part of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI).
Some of the countries that attended include; Ghana, Namibia, Uganda, Madagascar, Egypt, Armenia, and Mongolia.
Although, there was a lot of misconception that this wasn’t a Bitcoin event.
Galoy, the open-source software that built the Bitcoin Beach Wallet utilized by El Salvador wrote an article declaring that “The central bankers were definitely not coming to El Salvador to discuss Bitcoin”. They stated that it was a financial inclusion event and that “Bitcoin just happens to be the most inclusive financial network in the world.”
The AFI also stated that “the meetings also align with El Salvador’s recently launched national financial inclusion strategy which has digitization and access to finance to small businesses as a priority.”
There was one session in the event that solely covered Bitcoin. This session introduced the countries to Bitcoin, the Lightning Network, and the macro benefits of adopting Bitcoin amongst other important information.
(Bitcoin) Beach Party
On the last day of the event bought all countries (over 90 participants) to Bitcoin Beach, El Zonte, El Salvador. This is the zone for which the Bitcoin Beach Wallet was built.
The day was used to allow the attendants to experience firsthand Bitcoin being used as a legitimate payment system. This was met with positive reviews from both the vendors and customers alike.
