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El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

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Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#51
post #8

> Bukele said the country is partnering with digital wallet company, Strike, to build modern financial infrastructure using bitcoin technology. Wow, this seems like an incredibly shitty situation for the people of El Salvador. It looks like some lobbyists got hired by a wallet company stacked with angel investors willing to pour money into the idea of being integrated into the government at such a low level. I wouldn…

[deleted]

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#52
post #39

If creditors were obligated to accept Bitcoin, does that mean that to be a creditor, you must maintain a Bitcoin address/wallet? Or could you still just say, "Sorry, you still have to pay in USD because we don't have a Bitcoin wallet"?

If you make it clean beforehand what the repayment terms are you should be fine - at least in a US-style law way (this is why you can say “no $100s” or “you can’t pay in pennies”.

One you’ve a debt and you didn’t specify you may be required to accept payment (though if the debt is denominated in dollars the BTC is perhaps not as clear - does it have to be enough at the time of payment, settlement, etc?).

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#53

I'm sure the people of El Salvador won't mind having 20% of their wealth wiped out every time Elon Musk tweets something that changes his mind in some way. Certainly if I was selling something I'd denominate it in something relative stable and then change Bitcoin asking price to match the exchange rate to that stable currency. Since the currency there is the USD... Yeah, I'd still be pricing my goods and services in…

Historically, Bitcoin appreciated 300% YoY whereas the dollar is in a constantly depreciating cycle, I know which one I'd prefer.

Deflation is not something desireable in macroeconomics. It incentivizes hoarding cash instead of spending it on productive things (hiring people, capital investments to improve productivity, etc).

Slow and steady inflation is a stated goal for most governments and central banks.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#54
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, Bitcoin appreciated 300% YoY whereas the dollar is in a constantly depreciating cycle, I know which one I'd prefer.

What evidence is there that the USD is depreciating?

It’s down relative to Bitcoin. (People will say this with a straight face).

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#55
post #6

Probably not unrelated: US report: Allies of El Salvador's president deemed corrupt (last month) https://apnews.com/article/latin-america-el-salvador-1d089ae...

America extorts other nations by virtue of the $US being the world's dominant reserve currency. The federal reserve can print money unimpeded, with foreigners bearing the brunt of inflation. The math is simple.

Foreigners only bare the brunt of the inflation if they own USD denominated debt or other fixed income assets.

Americans suffer if the dollar inflates because imports get more expensive and rates demanded on USD debt purchased by foreigners will go up, making the loans more expensive in America.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#56
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their work is open source and they are using standard Bitcoin protocols. Zap is their wallet https://zaphq.io Strike is a payment app that uses Bitcoin Lightning network internally to settle payments between financial institutions. It's useful for sending fiat currency denominated remittances instantly and without fees. https://strike.me When they released Strike in El Salvador, it was an instant success. The preside…

To add on to that, it's been used pretty nicely in the El Zonte beach town [1]. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tatianakoffman/2020/07/14/this-...

When that article was written the transaction fees were around $1.50-$2.00 USD which is already a lot for meals and snacks. Now that the average transaction fees are anywhere from $7 - $60 I doubt people are buying much with bitcoin's dialup throughput.

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees...

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#57
post #8

> Bukele said the country is partnering with digital wallet company, Strike, to build modern financial infrastructure using bitcoin technology. Wow, this seems like an incredibly shitty situation for the people of El Salvador. It looks like some lobbyists got hired by a wallet company stacked with angel investors willing to pour money into the idea of being integrated into the government at such a low level. I wouldn…

Pay taxes in real money, get benefits in Disney Dollars.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#58
post #10

I wonder why a country would choose Bitcoin as legal tender when better, faster, more environmentally friendly cryptos exist (ones which can feasibly be used to transact money in real-time, for instance).

Bitcoin is the strongest cryptocurrency in terms of security, decentralization and liquidity. Which also means that bitcoin will keep its value better than other cryptocurrencies.

They are planning to use Bitcoin Lightning Network which is environmentally friendly and offers instant and almost feeless payments.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#59

I'm sure the people of El Salvador won't mind having 20% of their wealth wiped out every time Elon Musk tweets something that changes his mind in some way. Certainly if I was selling something I'd denominate it in something relative stable and then change Bitcoin asking price to match the exchange rate to that stable currency. Since the currency there is the USD... Yeah, I'd still be pricing my goods and services in…

Historically, Bitcoin appreciated 300% YoY whereas the dollar is in a constantly depreciating cycle, I know which one I'd prefer.

The difference is that the dollar doesn’t drop 30% of it’s value while you’re asleep - something BTC has done multiple times, including recently.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#60
post #42
post #8

> Bukele said the country is partnering with digital wallet company, Strike, to build modern financial infrastructure using bitcoin technology. Wow, this seems like an incredibly shitty situation for the people of El Salvador. It looks like some lobbyists got hired by a wallet company stacked with angel investors willing to pour money into the idea of being integrated into the government at such a low level. I wouldn…

Their work is open source and they are using standard Bitcoin protocols. Zap is their wallet https://zaphq.io Strike is a payment app that uses Bitcoin Lightning network internally to settle payments between financial institutions. It's useful for sending fiat currency denominated remittances instantly and without fees. https://strike.me When they released Strike in El Salvador, it was an instant success. The preside…

Yeah but imagine if you bought a beer for $4 and then next week the beer was actually worth $8 and the next it was worth $7 and then a few months later the beer was worth $50. The whole point of fiat is that it is stable and so you aren't fucking yourself by exchanging it for consumables.
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