Can someone please tell me if I should sell or keep my BTCs and why? Thanks!
Please sell
El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
381–390 of 732 posts
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#382>The new law means every business must accept Bitcoin as legal tender for goods or services, unless it is unable to provide the technology needed to do the transaction.
how easy is it for businesses to incorporate tech like this?
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#383They should have chosen NANO instead of BTC: Fast transactions and no transaction fees.
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#384> 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.
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.
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Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it's far more efficient now. Now the gang will just take 10% of your entire savings (because it's all on your phone) every time they see you. Or 30% if they don't like you that one day. Because if it's one thing I try to do in a situation with lots of street crime, it's carry the maximum amount of my net worth on my person in the least recoverable form in case I get robbed.
In Latin America people kidnap you and take you around to ATMs at gunpoint until you've reached the withdrawal limit. This seems so much more dangerous with bitcoin wallets.
There are wallets that will show a fake lower balance in distress mode.
Further, why walk around with all of your BTC available to you? If you really have enough to worry about gangs stealing it, put it in cold storage or on an exchange, but don't carry access to it around in your pocket the same way you wouldn't carry cash around in your pocket.
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#386I think it's time that we need some expert opinion and debunking of bitcoin. Elon Musk sold his bitcoins, Bill Gates was against it, Warren Buffet mocked it. One could easily make a fun documentary about all the disappointments of bitcoin. The MtGox theft was a wakeup call.
> Warren Buffet mocked it. Buffett has also said that he does not understand technology.
He understands currencies, which is enough. The tech part of bitcoin doesn't really matter, to be honest.
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#387I am just surprised how much negativity is in HN towards Bitcoin. This is the first case of decentralised open source tech winning against big established powers - governments/faceamagoos. We should be celebrating this. I sure hope that Bitcoin is going to be Linux of money/finance. Lightning might not be at the scale it needs to be now but it will improve greatly. maybe it is good enough already? Like Ruby on Rails.…
by comparing it to Linux do you mean where the backbone of finance is run by Bitcoin (like Linux running servers), or where <1% of users directly use Bitcoin themselves?
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#388Haha as someone who listened to the entire Twitter spaces chat last night, it's amazing how ignorant HN is about what's actually happening on the ground in El Salvador.
I found this to be a good read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Salvadoran_political_cr...
It's really superficial, for example it mentions arbitrary descisions from part of the supreme judges, but completely gloss over the fact that they were members of political parties and we're seen at rallies all over the country, they delayed clear cases of corruption from previous governments and that's more than enough reason to get them out according to the constitution.
People want ARENA and FMLN out of the country for good.
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 investme…
The original conversation was about how Bitcoin could help the 70% who are unbanked have access to something like a bank account. The proposed mechanism for this is "well, they can go to a bank and register something like a bank account, or else they can be a high-SES self-educated tech person who builds their own bank using computer hardware". I do not think this could help the 70% who are unbanked have access to so…
> The original conversation was about how Bitcoin could help the 70% who are unbanked
And this isn't the best argument for bitcoin. The best argument for it is the limited supply.
Considering the BBC has a dog in the fight, I believe that's probably why it doesn't mention the anti-inflationary argument that is the true reason a country would want to transact in BTC.
The USD is available to the US to make more of at any time. Imagine trying to run your government on someone else's currency. You'd always be at a disadvantage.
In the past the US hegemony has regime changed several countries that tried to use their own currency. (See Lybia)
Re: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am sorry but what is the point of adopting BTC if vast majority of the transactions are going to be handled by a third party service. Makes no sense to me.
There is open market competition for these third-parties. The system is fully trustless. Furthermore, onion routing (akin to Tor) is in development to prevent that third-party from knowing the content of your transaction and who you transacted with.
> There is open market competition for these third-parties.
Like banks?
> The system is fully trustless
Except for those third-parties, you mean? The people running the Lightning network are essential to this system functioning and very, very few people won’t be fully reliant on a bank to store their Bitcoin — especially after the first time someone makes the news for losing their wallet.