Ark Invest’s CEO is bullish on El Salvador’s economy. She sees the GDP increase multi-fold over the next half a decade, if it continues to ride the AI and Bitcoin wave. Specifically, she said,
“President Bukele's determination to turn El Salvador into an oasis for the bitcoin and AI communities - two of the biggest economic and technology revolutions in history - is the reason I believe that its real GDP could scale 10-fold during the next five years.”
The Ark executive is not the only one impressed by the Central American nation. Earlier this week, Argentine regulators revealed that they were looking to collaborate with the El Salvador government and strengthen mutual ties. In fact, they also want to learn from El Salvador’s experience of adopting Bitcoin as legal tender.
While adoption and regulations were the focus of the Argentina-El Salvador meeting, Wood discussed Bitcoin’s integration into capital markets, AI, tax policies, and economic and educational reforms. She further pointed out that El Salvador's GDP is currently is at a “low base” i.e. ~$30 billion, and the average income is only around $450 per month. Max Keiser, Bitcoin advisor to President Bukele, said that Wood walked through the numbers, and asserted,
“I’m a believer. I have a very high degree of confidence that Ark Invest’s numbers for El Salvador’s GDP going from $30 to $300 billion over the next 5 yrs (a 10x) are spot on.”
Furthermore, Bukele “leaped” at the idea of integrating Ark Educate's curriculum - that spans across technologically enabled innovation: robotics, energy storage, AI, blockchain, and multiomics - to schools in El Salvador.
El Salvador’s Bitcoin initiatives have been under the spotlight of late. The country has been successful in earning more than 470 BTC via mining rewards since 2021. All the mined BTC has been getting piled up in the government treasury. The El Salvadoran government’s holdings currently stand at around 5765 BTC [worth $390.13 million].
