Key facts: In Ecuador, Worldcoin has already accumulated several thousand users who have already scanned their irises. The ECB says that the use of unauthorized means is prohibited and even sanctioned. Right in the middle of the boom and growth that the Worldcoin project and other cryptocurrencies are having in Ecuador, the central bank of that country (BCE) ratified that digital assets are not legal tender and that their use as an electronic payment method is expressly prohibited. In a statement released on the entity's website, the BCE stressed that The only currency with that status is the US dollar.despite the fact that there are thousands of cryptocurrency users currently operating from Ecuador.
“Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in our country, nor are they an authorized electronic means of payment at the national level. (…) All transactions, monetary and financial operations and their accounting records, carried out in the country, are expressed in dollars.” Central Bank of Ecuador.
Although it is true that Ecuador recognizes the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, something reflected in the adoption studies of the firm Chainalysis and in the popularity that Worldcoin has obtained, for a couple of months; the ECB is emphatic in its position that virtual assets cannot be used in Ecuador and that, even, investigations and sanctions could be imposed on anyone who does so.
According to Ecuadorian law, if a natural or legal person makes use of crypto assets as unauthorized means of payment, the BCE “will inform the Attorney General's Office for its corresponding investigation and sanction.” The central bank took advantage of its statement to issue alerts to citizensthat cryptocurrency trading “could lead to significant losses due to its high volatility.” “As has been recently evidenced by the significant falls in its prices on international markets,” said the entity, which did not mention, however, the debacle recorded last “Black Monday,” when the stock, commodities and cryptocurrency markets fell into the red, something that was partly influenced by monetary policy decisions in Japan.
Ecuador confirmed that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in the country. Source: Central Bank of Ecuador.
A response to the popularity of Worldcoin in Ecuador
The statement from the Ecuadorian central bank is made public at a time when one of the most famous and controversial cryptocurrency projects today has had a significant boom in that nation. It is Worldcoin, who arrived in the South American country just over two months ago.
As reported by BitcoinDynamic, Thousands of users in Quito and Guayaquil have decided to join the Worldcoin ecosystem by scanning their iris. This, in exchange for receiving an income of about USD 20. For weeks, hundreds of Ecuadorians They go to the premises where they have access to scan their biometric data, to, according to the project, verify that they are real human beings and obtain the reward. Some Ecuadorian authorities have warned about this practice. This is the case of the Superintendency of Companies, Securities and Insurance, which published a statement in which Worldcoin is warned of as an “irregular activity”For Alfredo Velazco, director of the organization Digital Users, Ecuadorians have flocked to the Worldcoin standswith queues exceeding 150 people daily. All of them have received the company's benefit, which is valued in WLD tokens. Velazco warned in recent days that many of the people who scan their iris and sell it to Worldcoin, are in a situation of financial need and that is why they agree to give up their important biometric information, as reported by BitcoinDynamic.