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El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

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Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#271

Post by angry_octet »

pinkybanana wrote: post #127
angry_octet wrote: post #79

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…

> 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. Can you elaborate? With remittance there is people with physical cash in tens of different local currencies and countries, and they need to transfer that value to some other (obscure) country. I don't see any scenario how "just set up a bank i…

Most of the money is coming from El Salvadorians in the US, and as El Salvador uses the US Dollar as currency, that would be fairly straightforward. Even from, e.g. Mexican pesos, it would be simple because the USD is the destination currency. It would be a different proposition if we were talking about, e.g., Indians.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#272

Post by UncleMeat »

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…

You need your private key to sign transactions.

On an unrelated note, why do cryptocurrency advocates so frequently write "FIAT" in all caps? It isn't an acronym or initialism.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#273

Post by miked85 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #201
miked85 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The digital dollar has been here for years. I couldn't even tell you the last time I carried paper currency.

If I hand a cashier a physical dollar, no fee to me. Not so with your so-called digital dollars. An actual digital dollar would have no transaction fee whatsoever.

I don't pay any fee when I use a credit card.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#274

Post by rawtxapp »

UncleMeat wrote: post #231
rawtxapp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why would somebody who doesn't have a bank account be more capable of using a provider on the lightning network?

You just need a phone, that's it. Banking requires all the infrastructure, etc.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#275

Post by wins32767 »

pinkybanana wrote: post #181
wins32767 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Good luck storing and handling that pile of cash, I'll stay with my crypto hardware wallet.

If folks are unbanked, their pile of cash is unlikely to be so large that it's hard to store and handle.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#276

Post by ddtaylor »

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...

LN requires an on-chain transaction for both opening and closing a channel and requires the node stays online 24/7 to receive payments. That's garbage.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#277

Post by joelbondurant »

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.

These are the high powered brains who think the Federal Reserve is processing coffee payments.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#278

Post by ChrisRR »

fastball wrote: post #83
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

It has years more momentum than everyone else, not really surprising it's on the top. But if there is better tech, it will get usurped eventually.

I wish that were true. The best solution doesn't always win, but the most publicised solution will

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#279

Post by ranci »

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.

They'll eventually use lightning network.

Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender

#280

Post by KingOfCoders »

jbverschoor wrote: post #111
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.

It's not about "affording". Banks outright refuse people, businesses etc.

Then it's easier to give everyone the right to a bank account than introduce a new payment infrastructure.
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