El Salvador Won’t Release BTC Purchase Information

The Bitcoin-friendly government of El Salvador has rejected a request for information about its purchases of the leading cryptocurrency BTC.

El Salvador’s development bank, BANDESAL, declined to provide information about the government’s controversial Bitcoin purchases, according to a statement from an anti-corruption organization.

El Salvador’s Anti-Corruption Legal Advice Center (ALAC), which provides legal aid to citizens to make their voices heard against corruption, released a document of the bank in a tweet late over the weekend. In the document, BANDESAL says he cannot disclose “confidential” information.

BANDESAL is responsible for managing funds used by the Salvadoran government for Bitcoin projects. The small Central American country became the first in the world to accept cryptocurrency as a legal tender last year. ALAC criticized BANDESAL for this move. ALAC said in a tweet:

“Privacy limits citizens’ ability to access and obtain information on publicly funded operations by BANDESAL”

Recently, El Salvador and the Swiss city of Lugano signed a cooperation agreement (MOU) aimed at increasing the use of Bitcoin in their own regions as well as in neighboring countries and states. More than a year ago, El Salvador became the first country to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender. Lugano does not have such power in Switzerland, but about seven months ago it launched a program called Plan B to adopt BTC in this city of 70,000. After El Salvador’s BTC move in September 2021, the country announced that it had purchased BTC many more times.