Urging patience, finance minister Alejandro Zelaya said: "We aren't going to have results overnight. We can't go to bed poor and wake up millionaires."
El Salvador is standing by its decision to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, the country's finance minister has said.
Alejandro Zelaya says the Central American nation still plans to push ahead with a Bitcoin-backed bond — however, the exact date appears to be uncertain as the bear market continues.
President Nayib Bukele has invested public funds worth tens of millions of dollars into Bitcoin, but data suggests that the value of this crypto has plunged by 50% in the past year.
But Zelaya argues that a longer-term view is needed, and he was quoted by Bloomberg as saying:
"We aren't going to have results overnight. We can't go to bed poor and wake up millionaires. New technologies have shown how people in previous years were afraid of things like websites and digital business, but it’s been shown through time that reality imposes itself."
Bitcoin City — which Bukele unveiled to great fanfare shortly after the markets peaked last November — will also still go ahead, Zelaya said.
The crypto-themed metropolis is set to be built at the base of a volcano, tapping into renewable energy sources in order to mine BTC.
Intriguingly, the minister also suggested that further projects are going to be unveiled in the coming months.
While the Salvadoran government believes that Bitcoin has the potential to spur financial inclusion and nurture investment, a number of global bodies — including the International Monetary Fund — are urging Bukele to abandon BTC as legal tender.
During CoinMarketCap's The Capital conference earlier this year, Samson Mow warned El Salvador's Bitcoin Law could be repealed by a future government.
He said it's crucial that the country succeeds because it is "patient zero," adding:
"If Bitcoin can bring prosperity to El Salvador, then it's not likely that another government 10 years later is going to repeal the law and ban Bitcoin. They'll see what it's done. Bitcoin will be very much ingrained in their society and it'll still be a key component of their economy."
