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El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

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Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#241

Post by bun_at_work »

wraptile wrote: post #204
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that "normal people" will be able to use bitcoin at all without getting their private keys stolen is laughable. Think of how often online bank accounts get hacked in the US, except the difference now is that your money is gone, permanently.

How do you think bank accounts get hacked? It's much easier to yank a password/credit card number people use daily. The benefit of private key is you only need to use it once. Then store it away in a safe or _bank_. More UX will develop over time as adoption grows. We already have hardware wallets that even babies could use. Finally you somehow imply that FIAT theft doesn't happen. Even in recent modern history peopl…

> or even your bank going under.

FDIC insurance prevents your money from being lost in this case, no?

Also, it's a bit ridiculous to think that private keys won't be stolen because you can just store it away in a safe or bank or whatever. People are susceptible to all sorts of scams and this private key won't be a panacea for human stupidity or ignorance.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#242

Post by rahimnathwani »

nemo1618 wrote: post #114

Regardless of your feelings about Bitcoin, it was really exciting to see the president of El Salvador himself pop into a Twitter Space last night, as the bill was being voted on , to chat with bitcoiners about the implications of the new law. This is exactly the appeal of Twitter, if you think about it: it's a kind of "direct democracy" where the leader of a country can chat casually with everyday people -- and not i…

"the leader of a country can chat casually with everyday people"

What % of the people on the call were from El Salvador? What % of the folks that spoke or asked questions? And what % were unbanked?

From listening to the call for a while, I'd guess a low single-digit number.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#243

Post by cft »

HWR_14 wrote: post #232
cft wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live (USA) I tried to transfer money between my Wells Fargo account (that charges large fees for foreign ATM withdrawals) and a credit union account (that required heavy bureaucracy to open a business account, that's why my main accounts are in Wells Fargo, but the credit union withdrawals at the foreign ATMs are free). Wells Fargo offered Zelle for ACH but I got confused. Then I tried transferring through Ro…

Weird. Have you thought about using Wells Fargo's web interface to send the money? It's usually not hard to do if you have two account numbers.

Both have to be in WF, or you have to use Zelle or wire transfer (big fees). I ended up using WF Business Pay that i used for employee payroll...

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#244

Post by jwolfe »

bun_at_work wrote: post #221
singularity2001 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think the day the digital US dollar is developed … The digital US dollar is pretty much in use already, or do you think your bank has anything physical resembling the number on your account?

The bank does hold a fraction of your deposits, as our banking in the US is fractional reserve banking. This has been the case for quite some time, and isn't really the same thing as digital currency, even if we transact digitally.

From my understanding, they hold most of that in reserve accounts with the Federal Reserve. But yeah, someone at some point holds some cash. But of the total US money supply (in 2018), physical currency makes up about 11% of the total value[0].

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-us-currency-t...

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#245

Post by ddtaylor »

kragen wrote: post #226
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.

Even without Lightning, it's not US$10 per transaction; I commented in more detail at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27448744 .

Sometimes it's lower, sometimes it's much higher. Usually the more people that are using the blockchain the higher the fees. Bitcoin right now mostly follows a trend where it gains in popularity, which causes a surge in transactions, which causes fees to go up, which in turn causes people to stop using it, etc.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#246

Post by kragen »

BurnGpuBurn wrote: post #86

"Bitcoin is positioned to disrupt the remittances industry in El Salvador, estimated at about $5 billion annually. Most families in towns like El Zonte do not have bank accounts, and rely on services such as Western Union WU +0.5%, which take 5-10% in fees. The closest Western Union is approximately one hour by bus, requiring the recipient of the cash transfer to take the bus back with cash on hand, creating a safety…

I've had some experience with this myself, although I haven't gotten robbed outside a WU yet; I wrote a little about my Argentine experience in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27448744.

It's important to remember that WU's fees are so high in large part because WU is assuming risks (of identity fraud, of regulatory blockage, and of cash theft) that Bitcoin largely avoids.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#247

Post by zapdrive »

marcinjachymiak wrote: post #136
FreeTrade wrote: post #56

Sigh. Bitcoin BTC, at 3 transactions per second, doesn't have the capacity to support El Salvador's economy. Even if Lightning worked (it doesn't), BTC doesn't have enough capacity to open channels for users at a reasonable cost. Salvadorians will end up forced to use proprietary payment networks denominated in BTC. BTC is not cash anymore, it won't work as such. There are other cryptos that could work, we'll have to…

Lightning does work. I've used it myself as have many others. You should really work on explaining what it is you actually mean by that statement instead. Apparently they are using Lightning and a service LN Strike that recently launched. https://twitter.com/starkness/status/1402635954653904902?s=2...

Lightning is not decentralised. You have up keep your node online 24/7 to prevent theft. Most people can't do that. So they will end up keeping their coins in the custody of nodes that run 24/7. Leading to centralisation. Lightning is just like a MySQL database extra steps.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#248

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

bun_at_work wrote: post #221
singularity2001 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think the day the digital US dollar is developed … The digital US dollar is pretty much in use already, or do you think your bank has anything physical resembling the number on your account?

The bank does hold a fraction of your deposits, as our banking in the US is fractional reserve banking. This has been the case for quite some time, and isn't really the same thing as digital currency, even if we transact digitally.

That definition seems to differ from the definition I've commonly seen.

How do you define a digital currency?

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#249

Post by whoisninja »

rawtxapp wrote: post #191
Sebb767 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so there will NOT be a transaction fee involved as you are just moving within a national reserve with a national exchange. For buying and selling Bitcoin, possibly. Transactions with Bitcoin will still have the usual transaction fees, as you still need to pay the miners verifying/realizing them.

They are using lightning network which allows almost instant and practically free Bitcoin payments.

correct, just search El Zonte or Bitcoin Beach, tons of videos on youtube on how they're using lightning network in fully circular economy since entire town has been unbanked

it's pretty fantastic people! naysayers should plan to visit El Zonte, beautiful surfing community.

I plan to visit later this year and have friends who work with Strike team etc.

The future is looking optimistic!

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#250

Post by gruez »

tiku wrote: post #235
blocked_again wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking as a noob, isn't the whole point of transaction fees to prevent malicious actors from flooding the network with spam. How does lighting networks prevent that from happening and why can't one use a smiliar approach for the actual bitcoin blockchain?

This is called sharding in Ethereum and Zilliqa I believe.

AFAIK it's different from sharding. The transactions aren't being recorded on a separate chain, they're kept between the two ends of the channel.
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