El Salvador is set to become the first country in the world to issue government debt, backed by its economy and taxpayers, on the bitcoin market.
This will mark the first time in 500 years since the invention of modern finance that a sovereign does not turn to banks to raise capital, but goes directly to the global public.
Samson Mow of Blockstream, the bitcoin dev studio, said the offering will be on the Liquid network, a little used bitcoin sidechain operated by Blockstream. He said:
“Today, the president of El Salvador and I have announced that they will be issuing a $1 billion US ‘Bitcoin Bond’ on the Liquid Network.
The $1 billion US raised will be split between a $500M allocation of bitcoin (BTC) and a $500M infrastructure spend for building out energy and Bitcoin mining infrastructure in the region.”
