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El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

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Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#101

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.

You're telling us people that don't have bank accounts are gonna be using bitcoin in some abstruse way? Or are you saying some other entity (a bank) will help them with it? And if the latter, why would bitcoin be of help at all? A normal bank account would be simpler and less worrisome.

Both. Some people (probably minority) will use self-hosted wallets. Majority will use custodials (banks).

> And if the latter, why would bitcoin be of help at all? A normal bank account would be simpler and less worrisome.

USD will still stay as the official currency of El Salvador. However now merchants have to accept also BTC. The hypotheses is that for example foreign businessmen will bring BTC in form of investments to the country, and people will send BTC via remittances. There is possibility that there isn't actual demand, but there is also possibility that El Salvador might get some serious economical boost because of this.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#102
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lar…

I might not be remembering well, but I sort of remember receiving extra charges from my bank (Germany at the time) because I passed the number of transactions limit for the month. All transactions above the limit came at a charge.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#105
post #47
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.

Government buys 10,000 coins at $30k/coin Announces it's legal tender Price increases to $40k/coin Government sells Government makes $100m it no longer needs to raise in tax

Government investigates Government for purchasing arrangement at below market value.

Government investigates Government for illegal pump & dump scheme.

Bitcoin value drops.

Citizen held Bitcoin is worth less.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#106

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 O…

My take is that El Salvador may actually want the flow of money laundering through their banking system. And it gives them an opportunity to seize some of it.

The idea of increased remittances is interesting but the logistics of doing that on the ground might be challenging for the unbanked.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Who the hell has time to figure out all this stuff? Nobody will have to learn this stuff, if the BTC economy develops there will be professional custodials for all levels. Eg. banks. But the importance is that there is always the option to self-custody if you want to. With fiat you don't have that option even in theory. I think the option for self-custody is what makes BTC powerful alternative, not necessarily how…

> But the importance is that there is always the option to self-custody if you want to. With fiat you don't have that option even in theory.

You mean that if you store cash it will magically disappear once you hit a certain quantity or age?

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Who the hell has time to figure out all this stuff? Nobody will have to learn this stuff, if the BTC economy develops there will be professional custodials for all levels. Eg. banks. But the importance is that there is always the option to self-custody if you want to. With fiat you don't have that option even in theory. I think the option for self-custody is what makes BTC powerful alternative, not necessarily how…

> But the importance is that there is always the option to self-custody if you want to. With fiat you don't have that option even in theory.

The stack of hundred dollar bills under my mattress disagrees with you.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#109
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site sucks

Instead of being a jerk and trying to shut down a conversation, and making completely unwarranted assumptions about people participating in it, perhaps you could actually make the case. Yeah?

When Bitcoiners bring actual facts to the table, people ignore it.

Bitcoin has been used in the El Zonte town for some time now and lightning is functioning and allows almost instant and practically free Bitcoin payments, yet if you read half the comments here, Bitcoin is very slow/inefficient system and is only used by criminals.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#110

Congratulations to Bitcoin. All it took was a fascist takeover.

Do you even know what fascist means?

I know what "fascist" means. "Authoritarian" might be a slightly better epithet for the current president Bukele. His party recently voted, in the assembly, to fire five supreme court judges who opposed Bukele.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Salvadoran_political_cris...

He and his party were elected, however. It seems Salvadorans are getting sick of the neverending war between the MS-13 and Calle 18 gangs.

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