The Congress of El Salvador approved, early this Wednesday, the 9th of the law that classifies bitcoin as a legal tender in the country. The decision makes El Salvador is the first country to adopt bitcoin as its official currency.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced the plan last weekend and is expected to enact the law this Wednesday morning. The idea, according to him, is to increase the dynamism of the economy and make the country more attractive to investors.

“The ‘Bitcoin Law’ was recently passed by the Legislative Assembly with a qualified majority. 62 out of 84 people voted! It’s all in the past! “, the president exulted. “This is a legislation that will place El Salvador on the map, and we’ll be more appealing to global business,” said Congressman Romeo Auerbach, a Bukele supporter.

Anabel Belloso, from the opposition, who voted against the project, lamented that the law “has not been discussed with specialists, nor with patience”: “The law has many implications in the economic sphere and not everyone knows how this will work, leading to considering that cryptocurrencies are volatile in the market, they are unstable,” he said.

With the new law, bitcoin must be accepted as a form of payment by “any economic agent” in the country, excluding those who “It is a well-known truth that they do not have access to the tools that allow them to conduct bitcoin transactions.” Part of country’s population is excited for El Salvador is the first country to adopt bitcoin as its official currency .

For accounting purposes, the US dollar, the official currency of El Salvador, will be used as a reference, but the text states that the bitcoin exchange rate “will be freely established by the market” and that the State will provide alternatives for “automatic and instantaneous conversion between the bitcoin and the dollar” for those who prefer it that way.

According to Bukele, giving bitcoin the status of legal tender in the country aims to generate jobs and increase “financial inclusion for thousands of people outside the formal economy” – according to the president, 70% of the population of El Salvador is currently unbanked.

In addition, the Salvadoran president also said that bitcoin could make it easier for Salvadorans living abroad to send money to friends and family in the country.

Currently, El Salvador’s economy is heavily dependent on remittances sent from other parts of the world, which represent more than 20% of GDP. Data show that more than two million Salvadorans living abroad send around 5 billion dollars  each year to their home country, that is the first country to adopt bitcoin as its official currency.

Providers of this type of service charge high fees and operations take days to be carried out. With bitcoin, the cost and timeframe for these transactions would be reduced considerably: “This will improve the lives and futures of millions,” predicts Bukele.

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The EUR/USD rallied on Thursday, as technical trading sent the pair higher amid mixed economic data from Germany.

The EUR/USD regained 1.13 and climbed to an intraday high of 1.1367. It would later consolidate at 1.1320 in the North American session, advancing 0.4 percent. Initial support is likely found at 1.1253 and resistance at 1.13355. The EUR/USD could sustain a larger rebound above the initial resistance test as the RSI climbs off oversold levels.

Technical trading supported the euro despite plunging German inflation, which highlighted even more so the downside risks facing the Eurozone economy. Germany’s consumer price index of goods and services declined more than forecast in January, plunging 0.3 percent annually.

Germany’s harmonized CPI rate, which calculates inflation using a method consistent throughout the European Union, declined 0.5 percent annually, the biggest drop in more than five years.

The European Central Bank last week joined a growing list of central banks that have eased monetary policy this month to account for deflationary risk. The ECB introduced its long-awaited quantitative easing program last Thursday, announcing it would begin buying government bonds worth €60 billion per month. The QE program, which is expected to last until at least September 2016, could inject up to €1 trillion into the Eurozone economy.

The EUR/USD plummeted to fresh 12-year lows following the news and risks further downside action as the markets brace for weaker inflation figures and diverging central bank policies between the ECB and United States Federal Reserve.

In a separate report today Germany said its unemployment rate fell in January to its lowest level in more than two decades, a sign Europe’s largest economy was gradually improving despite regional imbalances. Germany’s unemployment rate fell to 6.5 percent in January, down from 6.6 percent a month earlier. That was the lowest level since the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990.

An improving labour market and cheaper gas prices are lifting German consumer sentiment, according to GfK. The market research firm’s monthly consumer confidence index reached 9.3 in February, a 13-year high.

“Consumers are expecting the German economy to continue developing positively over the coming months,” GfK reported on Wednesday in a press release.

It added, “Falling energy prices will play a major role in this respect. Low energy prices combined with a considerable depreciation in the euro are acting as an economic stimulus and should boost not only exports, but also companies’ willingness to invest.”

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The US dollar advanced against a basket of currencies Wednesday, as the Federal Reserve conveyed optimism that inflation would gradually reach its target in the medium-term despite pledging to be patient on raising interest rates.

The US dollar index – a weighted average of the greenback’s performance against a basket of six currencies – climbed 0.33 percent to 94.33. The index reached an intraday high of 94.46 in the hours leading up to the Federal Open Market Committee rate statement.

The Federal Reserve made no changes to monetary policy on Wednesday, pledging to remain patient about raising interest rates in the face of below-trend inflation.

“To support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the Committee today reaffirmed its view that the current 0 to 1/4 percent target range for the federal funds rate remains appropriate,” the Federal Reserve outlined in its official rate statement.

The statement added, “When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run.”

Policymakers are confident that inflation will gradually return to target in the medium-term as the “transitory effects” of lower energy prices and labour market underutilization diminish. Energy prices have plunged nearly 60 percent since the summer, driving down inflationary pressures throughout the advanced industrialized world. This has prompted central banks in Canada, Switzerland and Singapore, among others, to ease monetary policy to stave off deflation and promote economic growth.

The Federal Reserve has maintained rock-bottom interest rates for more than six years, having only in October ended its record bond-buying program. According to experts, the Federal Reserve could begin lifting interest rates in the second half of the year. Analysts had previously forecast a rate hike to materialize by June.

Rate-hike speculation has fueled the US dollar over the past seven months. The US dollar index is trading at 12-year highs, having gained more than 17 percent year-over-year.

The dollar was trading higher against the euro on Wednesday, as the EUR/USD declined 0.67 percent to 1.1307. The pair is likely to face initial support at 1.1277 and resistance at 1.1359.

The greenback rose more than 100 pips against its Canadian counterpart, as the USD/CAD retook the critical 1.25 level. The pair consolidated at 1.2509 in the North American session. Initial support is likely found at 1.2425 and resistance at 1.2555.

The US dollar could receive a boost at the end of the week when the Commerce Department reports on fourth quarter GDP. The US economy is forecast to rise 3.3 percent annually in the fourth quarter, following a 5 percent gain in the July to September period.

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Bitcoin trading can be very enjoyable and lucrative at the same time. So let’s consider the best bitcoin trading platforms. It offers a variety of benefits in comparison to other trading markets. Peer-to-peer markets offer traders low priced trading with the freedom to trade very securely, and on top of that, you will know that the odds are not heavily stacked against you because of the advantages enjoyed by larger financial institutions. It is very difficult for regular retail traders to trade via traditional trading markets and the investments they tend to make or plan can often feel like they are gambling everything away at a casino – and we all know what happens most of the time at casinos: the house wins.

However, when you talk about Bitcoin trading, the tables can be turned to benefit all regular traders. How, you ask? Well, mainly because of the volatility in Bitcoin trading. Although the volatility levels associated with Bitcoin trading are potentially risky, the rewards are considerably bigger than the risks. This is the only reason why most people choose to trade on Bitcoin and many have prospered financially in the Bitcoin market.

So, if you have decided to indulge in Bitcoin trading, and have completely understood the risks you will be taking, then the next phase of business is to learn about the various platforms through which you can trade Bitcoin:

Bitfinex

Bitfinex is one of the very few Bitcoin platforms which allow traders to have complete access to ‘leverage’ using marginal trading, and it also offers you the opportunity to use your funds in order to liquidate other traders with a set amount of interest fee. The Bitfinex trading tool permits traders to efficiently trade using more money than they actually have, which gives you the advantage to collect profits made on your investment, but it also increases your losses if you happen to make a bad call.

For example, if you have invested $100 to take a ‘long’ stance on Bitcoin with 10 times the leverage, and you see that the price of the Bitcoin increased by 5%, then instead of making a $5 profit off your $100, you can actually make $50. Sounds implausible? Well, it really is not, because Bitfinex borrows an additional sum of money from liquidity providers and utilizes it to purchase the Bitcoin. What this does is increase your potential profits, but at a cost, of course.

Kraken

Kraken provided Bitcoin traders with a variety of trading options, all associated with Bitcoin. For example, it offers Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ripples, and various other digital currencies which you can trade with, and make a profit in USD OR Euros. Moreover, with Kraken, you are not limited to trading Bitcoin in limited orders. You can set up or automatically purchase or sell Bitcoins and other digital currencies at a percentage above or below the set market price. Your trades can also be automatically closed at a specific profit range, which you can set either as percentage or as a fixed amount.

Traders can also automatically set trailing close, stop, and a number of other options.

This revolutionary trading platform also has a sliding scale fee system. This means regular Bitcoin traders who do enough trading and make substantial profits to meet their targets will get gradual reductions in their trading costs. With most platforms offering trading fee up of to 0.1%, Kraken offers investors free trading options.

Coinsetter

Coinsetter allows you to trade with specific institutional investors who have the ability to spend substantial amounts of money. This is a feature offered only by Coinsetter, which makes it the first of its kind. Coinsetter offers its traders a deep order book, which means that investors can trade big sums of money without buying or selling above or below the market price. This is done through an amalgamation of the native order book with various exchanges allowing traders complete and quick access to the most popularly traded exchanges.

BTX Trader

BTX Trader specializes in providing traders with a multitude of different and advanced order types, which include stop loss orders and trailing stop orders. However, BTX Trader also has another very beneficial trading feature, one which very few Bitcoin platforms have, and that is its ‘hidden orders’ feature. The hidden orders feature allows a trader to make a limit order on the Bitcoin market which other traders will not be able to detect. This is particularly advantageous in thin market settings or markets which have considerably limited liquidity and volume, such as the Bitcoin market itself. However, you can use this hidden feature to make larger trades which have the power to swing the volatility of the Bitcoin market.

The best part about this feature is the fact that your offer will never be able to influence another trader, because they will not be able to see it.

So, these are some of the more popular Bitcoin trading platforms that you can trade on effectively.

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MKTPlace is a leading digital and social media platform for traders and investors. MKTPlace offers premiere resources for trading and investing education, digital resources for personal finance, news about IoT, AI, Blockchain, Business, market analysis and education resources and guides.