El Salvador President Nayib Bukele made a surprise appearance during Jack Mallers' talk at the Bitcoin 2021 conference this afternoon, promising to send a bill to the legislature next week to make Bitcoin (BTC-USD) legal tender in his country. Bukele's party's control over the legislature makes passage nearly certain.The move would make El Salvador the first sovereign nation on the planet to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender.Mallers is founder of the lightning payments network Strike that is working in partnership with El Salvador. Well more than 50% of that country's citizens are unbanked, and remittances from overseas account for more than 20% of GDP. Legacy players charge 10% or more fees on those remittances, and several days can go by before the money becomes available. Those same remittances via Bitcoin would be instant and the fees would be microscopic.Mallers takes note of the most important part of Bukele proposed bill: "Central banks
