Crypto evangelists enter the Bukele government: The dark business of bitcoin in El Salvador

American crypto evangelist Max Keizer has compared Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to John F. Kennedy and El Salvador to the kingdom of Camelot, describing it as a kind of promised land for bitcoin where taxes and central banks are sleighed like dragons.

Until a few months ago, Keizer - an American former stockbroker and reporter close to Russian propaganda sites - was just another one of the many outlandish characters who began to arrive in the country in 2021, after Bukele announced that El Salvador would be the first in the world to accept bitcoin as legal currency.

Bitcoin City In June 2021, Bukele announced that bitcoin would be the official currency in his country, along with the dollar.

At the end of 2021, Bukele hosted Bitcoin Week in El Salvador - an event that tried to emulate the vibe of the Miami conference.

At the party to celebrate the end of the event, Bukele took to the main stage, at the foot of the beach, while a giant screen projected in neon blue letters: "The President." Laser lights, smoke cannons and fireworks went off as the president took the microphone: "When Alexander the Great was conquering the world, he decided to establish 20 Alexandrias throughout his empire. These cities were beacons of hope for the rest of the planet. We must establish our first Alexandria here, in El Salvador. Let's build Bitcoin City.".

Bukele said his Bitcoin City would be powered by geothermal energy from a nearby volcano, and that the money to set up schools, hospitals and the rest of the services needed would come from so-called volcano bonds or bitcoin bonds: new Salvadoran public debt securities backed by bitcoin.

Keizer and Herbert are not the only influential figures from the crypto world who have collaborated in implementing El Salvador's bitcoin transition.

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