World Bank rejects El Salvador request for assistance on bitcoin

Making it legal: A business owner poses at his shop where bitcoins are accepted. El Salvador is seeking to use bitcoin as a parallel legal tender alongside the US dollar. —Reuters

SAN SALVADOR: The World Bank said it could not assist El Salvador’s bitcoin implementation given environmental and transparency drawbacks.

“We are committed to helping El Salvador in numerous ways including for currency transparency and regulatory processes, ” said a World Bank spokesperson via email.