Cynthia Lummis is the first woman to represent Wyoming in the Senate. She is a member of the Banking Committee and a great promoter of Bitcoin in the United States.
As a promoter of Bitcoin, the Senator informs herself through different media about the progress of El Salvador after the country accepted Bitcoin as legal tender. Among those sources is the Bitcoin Magazine, The El Salvador issue.
In June 2021, in an interview, she talked about El Salvador and the benefits of making Bitcoin legal tender. “Now, for example, El Salvador just decided to make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador. The reason they did that is because 22% of El Salvador’s economy comes from payments made by people working in the United States and elsewhere to their relatives in El Salvador. Now, if a son is sending his mother in El Salvador, money that has to be sent through Western Union, there’s a steep fee. The mother in El Salvador, may encounter gangs or other thieves. And it’s risky. However, if the son can use his cell phone to send $100 in bitcoin to his mother, and she receives $100 in bitcoin, there are no fees, no concerns about theft, and no high fees associated with such transmission”.
She has now suggested that the Federal Reserve should hold bitcoin on its balance sheet, speaking on a panel hosted by the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation on Feb 17th, Lummis said, “I think it’s a great idea to be honest” for the Fed to buy bitcoin as it holds over $40 billion in foreign currency reserves. Lummis was replying to a question by the panel moderator Matt Sandgren, executive director of the Hatch Foundation, who hosted the panel on the future of the crypto economy.
In the meantime, El Salvador has become a reference in the Latin-American region after the launch of the first Bitcoin-Funded veterinary hospital in the region.