Jack Mallers, CEO of payment platform Strike, is looking to increase investment in El Salvador. The company moved its headquarters there last year. Jack Mallers celebrated the country’s good direction in dealing with bitcoin. El Salvador approved a tax reform for cryptocurrency transactions of $25,000 earlier this year.
The CEO of the payment platform, Strike, Jack Mallers, said he is looking to increase its investment in El Salvador. Last year, Strike moved its headquarters to El Salvador, from where it expanded bitcoin payments to 65 countries.
Jack Mallers said that El Salvador has improved and the company will seek to support more local projects or bring the benefits of the crypto ecosystem to the country, as “Chicago is not changing as much as El Salvador is changing.”
Strike CEO Jack Mallers Welcomes El Salvador’s Bitcoin Strategy
Strike’s CEO stated that investing in El Salvador is a “good investment” regardless of the area, whether it is “technology or land. The company is licensed as a digital asset provider, which means it has government support for its products and services.
“This country was great, and to be honest, coming back and seeing all the changes, it’s amazing. We see El Salvador improving and we want to invest more and make sure we can support and benefit from all the good that is happening here. Chicago doesn’t change as much as San Salvador, so it’s great,” Mallers told the El Salvador newspaper.
Jack Mallers, who is a “big fan of what the country has done with BTC,” predicted that El Salvador’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could grow up to 10 times and that the country is on the right track with its handling of bitcoin. He also noted that the BTC that the government is loafing around with has gone up a lot in price, which would translate into wealth.
“We would like to allow Salvadorans to buy BTC with their bank account, that was an effort we tried to solve by connecting with local banks, although we already offer the service with the debit card. That’s what we found, we know they appreciate it. We’re trying to understand where people value our software the most,” Mallers told the local newspaper.
El Salvador’s Attractiveness to Bitcoin Investors
Last year, Strike moved its headquarters to El Salvador, saying the move was due to increasing regulatory pressure and lack of clarity in the United States. The company currently operates in the United States, Argentina and El Salvador, but will expand to a market of about 3 billion people.
Earlier this year, El Salvador approved a reform to its tax code that requires customers to provide a Documento Único de Identidad (DUI) for financial transactions, including cryptocurrency, only for amounts of $25,000 or more. For lower amounts, local crypto companies will not be able to perform Know Your Customer (KYC).
“With this reform, investors will also benefit from faster processes. This is important because the technology industry is expected to grow in our country, so we need to establish regulations that encourage this sector. Our country is growing in tourism thanks to the security measures we have supported, which means direct contributions to the economy”.
Mallers stressed that President Nayib Bukele’s decision to make bitcoin legal tender allows to give value to the work of Salvadorans, because it offers an option against the devaluation of their money.
By Leonardo Perez
