Bitcoin, flailing, gets a boost

A tough Tuesday for Bitcoin turned wild on Wednesday with a tiny Central American country leading the charge.

After hitting about $31,700 yesterday, notching close to a six-month low, BTC today is being buoyed by El Salvador becoming the world's first country to legally adopt it as legal tender. "Digital Gigante" roared above $35,000 as of Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. (EST). Shrugging off a post-Miami hangover that included talk of an impending trip south of the $20K border, BTC at last check sat at about $35,100, having risen 6.2% over 24 hours. Stuck sideways at $37,000-$38,000 no longer seems so bad.

And Solana (SOL) is surging again. Boosted by a turbo-brain-injection, SOL is now breathing down Uniswap's neck for a coveted spot in crypto's Big Ten. Selected projects in the Ethereum challenger's ecosystem are being thrust into an accelerator program, "Solverse," leveraging past successes (Metaplex and Raydium), DeFi possibilities in an era of scalability and a newly assembled roster of top mentors across industries.

Leo Token (LEO) was one of those random, relatively lesser-known coins to flash some gaudy plumage as majors commiserated on Tuesday. But LEO was fading fast earlier today.

The 53rd-largest crypto has shed 13% as of this morning at 7 a.m. (EST). Meanwhile, NEO, ALGO, NEXO and NANO all were on the rise.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin law … passed!

What this means for crypto remains unclear (investors seem pleased) but the proverbial genie does seem more inclined to freely roam outside the bottle.

The bill, to regulate bitcoin as unrestricted legal tender with liberating power, unlimited in any transaction, and to any title that public or private natural or legal persons require carrying out, was approved by a supermajority in the Salvadoran Congress.

El Salvadorans are split. Some residents are excited by BTC becoming legally tenderized; others are concerned it may just be a tool for corrupt officials (CoinDesk).

In the wake of El Salvador’s warm BTC embrace, a Paraguayan Congressman, Carlos Rejala, has said he plans to present a bill in his country aimed at attracting mining companies and other crypto businesses.

As far as any semblance of new world order manifestation, the jury is out. That is, in part, because the term legal tender, legally speaking, hasn’t sufficient teeth, according to J.P. Koning, a former Canadian equities researcher who runs the Moneyness blog. Writing an opinion piece for CoinDesk, Koning said El Salvador’s declaration “probably is more of a publicity stunt than a substantial change to its monetary status.”

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque is under pressure amid widespread anti-government protests, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets since the end of April, resulting in deadly clashes with police.

With crypto poised to further disrupt the status quo in Latin America, Jehudi Castro Sierra, a top advisor to President Duque, is clashing with outspoken Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff.

Replying to one of Schiff’s incessantly rendered BTC tweet-bashings, Sierra had a simple retort: “Short it and stop talking.”