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El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

bbc.com

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Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#71

Post by rawtxapp »

briefcomment wrote: post #44
spottybanana wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the normal people will use in the beginning is going to be non-custodial LN based solution like strike. Minimal fees, easy to use. If you get a bit more, move to custodial LN wallet/onchain transactions. More fees, more security and less trust. And once you have too much BTC start storing them in an offline cold storage.

I don't think LN is easy to use. Common trope is that most Bitcoin maximalists have never used it.

The adoption is increasing (1ml.com) and there are many easy to use wallets (Phoenix wallet is my favorite so far).

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#72

Post by aNoob7000 »

enlyth wrote: post #48
spottybanana wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the normal people will use in the beginning is going to be non-custodial LN based solution like strike. Minimal fees, easy to use. If you get a bit more, move to custodial LN wallet/onchain transactions. More fees, more security and less trust. And once you have too much BTC start storing them in an offline cold storage.

I can see someone explaining to their grandmother about having to move her BTC to offline cold storage and storing her private keys securely or she could lose her life's savings in an instant with no recourse

LOL! Very true..

Who the hell has time to figure out all this stuff?

I personally think the day the digital US dollar is developed and can be stored in your IPhone. If I can take my locally stored digital dollar and then send it via imessage or whatsapp, then the game is truly over for Bitcoin.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#74

Post by rawtxapp »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #40
spottybanana wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the normal people will use in the beginning is going to be non-custodial LN based solution like strike. Minimal fees, easy to use. If you get a bit more, move to custodial LN wallet/onchain transactions. More fees, more security and less trust. And once you have too much BTC start storing them in an offline cold storage.

LN still requires periodic on-chain transactions to close and open payment channels. So either these costs are being passed along to the users in El Salvador or the wallet provider is subsidizing it.

Channel factories will eventually be able to bundle all these channel open/closes in a single transaction.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#77

Post by deviantfero »

danaos wrote: post #22

I don't see how this is going to benefit Salvadorans. As much as I try, I can't find a use case beyond money laundering, ransomware and extortion.

remittance transfers from Salvadorans on the U.S are around 17% of GNP, that's a lot of money lost on transfer fees that Bitcoin and the LN won't have

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#78

Post by limusrazor »

ChrisRR wrote: post #51

I wish bitcoin hadn't become the go-to crpyto. As a world, we shouldn't be encouraging the use of a currency which is literally churning out CO2 into the air when there's so many less wasteful cryptos out there

The less wasteful cryptos are more centralized. What's the point of using an inefficient data structure (blockchain) if you are sacrificing de-centralization in pursuit of gaining efficiency? Over time miners will move into renewable energies as the price of them goes down.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#79

Post by angry_octet »

Amazingly shortsighted. The primary beneficiaries of this will be organised crime, who will now be able to wash the Bitcoin via El Salvador to convert it to dollars, which they can use to buy trade items and export the profits.

The number one export of El Salvador is actually people. If they were concerned about remittance fees they could just set up a bank in the US with low fees, instead of getting kickbacks from OCGs and Western Union / Money Gram etc.

El Salvador is set to be a big climate change loser, and every joule spent on bitcoin is bringing them closer to disaster.

"El Salvador has seen a steady increase in extreme events (storms, floods and droughts) during the last 30 years. The Pacific coastline is already experiencing rising sea levels and it is expected that 10–28 percent of the country’s coastal zone territory will be lost by the end of the century. Coastal areas, home to over 30 percent of the population, are highly vulnerable to the combination of sea level rise and El Niño events."

https://www.climatelinks.org/resources/climate-risk-profile-...

Coastal flooding risk is significant due to loss of mangroves.

https://thinkhazard.org/en/report/75-el-salvador/CF

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#80

Post by lui8906 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #59
blocked_again wrote: post #18

> The El Salvador President has previously said the move will open up financial services to the 70% of Salvadoreans who do not have bank accounts. Right. People who can't even afford a bank account would now all be using financial services by paying 10 dollars per transaction.

Where I live ordinary bank transactions are free for ordinary consumers. I never pay a transaction fee or any annual fees. My bank used to charge an annual fee for a credit card but they have stopped charging now. In fact in my whole life (I'm 65 so about 50 years of having bank accounts) I have never paid transaction fees for ordinary transactions (in the UK and Norway).

Living in Germany here. Many traditional banks charge a monthly fee of 10 euros for maintaining the bank account.

Additionally, my parents wanted to send me some money from another country and the cheapest fee they could find was $10.5 (Wise) most other options were from $30 to $100. This was for transferring roughly $2000.

I can agree that for a simple in country tx I've not had to pay living in Germany, that is largely because of smaller banks challenging and whittling down fees.

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