Bitcoin Cash being proposed as legal tender in St Martin Parliament
The two most important tasks of parliament is the realization of legislation for Sint Maarten, and secondly, to exercise control over Government’s policy. Under the first task, Parliament exercises this task together with Government, so Parliament is called the co-legislator. In order to carry out the aforementioned, the Parliament has a number of powers that allows it to fulfill its two tasks: The right to approve and amend the budget; The right of interpellation where each Member of Parliament (MP) has the right to question ministers of government in the General Assembly of Parliament; The right of initiative allows MPs to submit draft laws on their own initiative; The right to amendment, allows MPs to amend legislation that has been submitted to Parliament; The right to ask questions, every MP can question a Minister orally or in writing; The right to instigate inquiries allows parliament to institute an inquiry into the state of affairs in an event in which Government is involved.
Before the minister gave his presentation a parliament member (not Brison) outlined 3 questions they were hoping were answered by the minister's presentation:
if it's the intention to use crypto as legal tender
if it's the intention to save it as a governmental asset
if crypto payments to parliament members can be considered a bribe.
The minister realizing he was not prepared mentioned if he had known these questions ahead of time he would be giving a very different presentation. After his presentation another parliament member got a little heated and basically said the ministry has been seriously slacking, especially with all the Bitcoin Cash adoption on the island. Sometimes they use the word crypto to describe things but they do make special note that Bitcoin Cash is the most popular coin on the island.
The minister says he currently has a crypto portfolio and sounds like he is pro technology saying technology = progress and said, 'he doesn't want to underestimate cryptocurrency and how fast technology evolves".
The meeting ends with parliament members suggesting bringing in the previous minister of finance to give a talk about crypto adoption on the island since the previous minister of finance wrote a paper on it. They also mention bringing in other experts to educate parliament and start the discussion. The ministry of finance said nicely that parliament should start the discussion on their own while he gets more answers from the gov't.
Here are some interesting point as follows:
1.Concerns Expressed about tracking Bitcoin cash and its wallet as it does not require KYC to be used .
2.Concerns expressed on the impact to Citizens when the Fiat value of the Crypto token drops.
3.Concerns expressed with not having the Ministry of Finance be involved more heavily in the initial marketing and not presenting at the November Blockchain Conference such as was done in the Bahamas with FTX.
4.The Value proposition of Cypto to St Martin especially for remittances.
5.Regulating Crypto as legal tender in St Martin.
6.Thoughts on Blockchain Technology as a means to increasing financial compliance.
7.Concerns regarding Crypto Volatility and intended usage in St Martin.
8.Taxation
This all will be concluded like this that their traditional banking system is not working, (takes too long to open an account), and they need something that really works!! That something, is Bitcoin Cash, where they have control over their own money, and can be paid by their employer, instantly!!! Bitcoin Cash can work and integrate into so many countries. It has all the tools that they need for a sound economy.