Even though the odds are stacked against her, Indira Kempis, a senator from Mexico’s state of Nuevo Leon, wants to make her country the second in the world to embrace Bitcoin as legal cash.
The legislator complimented Bitcoin’s features as an inclusive currency that assists the unbanked in an interview with Diario El Salvador. She claims she has been talking with experts on the commodity and now wants to utilize her political clout to promote Bitcoin’s usability throughout Mexico.
“We need bitcoin to be a legal tender in Mexico, because if not if we don’t make that decision as El Salvador did, it will be very difficult to concretize further actions,” she said, adding that her style was to create laws that “anticipate the future” rather than simply fix the past.
For a long time, Kempis has been leaning toward Bitcoin. Following President Nayib Bukele’s announcement that Bitcoin would be approved as legal tender in El Salvador, the lawmaker was among a handful of politicians that added laser eyes to their profile images to express their pro-cryptocurrency beliefs.
She’s been working on a proposal for a crypto-friendly legal structure since then. But the road to making Mexico a crypto-nation isn’t all roses.
In a news conference in October, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated unequivocally that his government has no interest in accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment, much less declaring it legal tender. Instead, he is concentrating on bolstering the country’s financial system by combating tax evasion.
“We think that we must maintain orthodoxy in the management of finances and try not to innovate too much in financial management,” He said.
The tenure of López Obrador expires in 2024, thus Kempis’ idea will have to wait at least two years. Even if that weren’t the case, Kempis would still be up against it, as she is a member of Movimiento Ciudadano, the third-largest opposition group. For the bill to pass, it would need widespread support from outside the senator’s own party.