El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so • Hacker News Board

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#111

Post by paulgb » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

carnitine wrote: post #90

throwdecro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm envisioning a lot of dirty looks from paper cash-preferring shopkeepers to crypto tourists when the tourists buy up all shop's inventory and leave the shopkeeper with just a few numbers in some app. EDIT: To be clear, I mean tourists each individually buying a normal amount of things using BTC, which adds up to the store exchanging it's inventory for a number in the app.

Didn’t the grandparent comment explain that in such a case, legal tender doesn’t apply? There’s no debt in a normal shopping transaction, the shopkeeper is free to accept whatever they wish or reject the transaction entirely.

El Salvador’s adoption goes beyond making it legal tender, they require acceptance:

> every economic agent must accept bitcoin as payment when offered to him by whoever acquires a good or service

https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-will-soon-be-legal-tende...

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#112

Post by simiones » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #102

simiones wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, they are not even using lighning wallets. They are using a centralized payment processor that has personal accounts for users, like any other payment app. This centralized processor happens to use lightning wallets in its backend, but there is no 1:1 mapping of payment_account:lightning_wallet. And since Lightning itself doesn't interact with the blockchain except when you open/close payment channels, there…

You can use any lightning wallet in El Salvador. There’s no need to use a particular provider, or even a provider at all. If you want to buy the requisite hardware (I think a raspberry pi and a USB SSD is the budget approach) you can completely self-host.

True, but how many people will use anything other than the officially recommended app? How many businesses even will go to the trouble of looking for an app to use, other than the default?

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#113

Post by arcticbull » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #83

richwater wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, best to troll on Twitter than fix your country that has the literal highest homicide rate in the world. Murder good for Bitcoin?

He fixed the homicide rate already. [0] [0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/03/el-salvador-homicide-hi...

... by looking the other way while the cartels operate with impunity. My understanding was there was a handshake deal with the narcos that if they stopped murdering they'd stop checking in on them. [1]

So yes, if you allow the state to become an arm of the cartels then I suppose you can call it a job well done that they're not murdering as many people.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54192736

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#114

Post by arcticbull » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

rglover wrote: post #8

Best part is the President trolling the IMF on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1435263064933285898

Yes that'll show those checks notes professionals.

The IMF is of course the entity who had to bail out the entire country of Albania when they all got into a massive ponzi scheme, jailed their finance minister and had a civil war over it.

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#115

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #109

throwdecro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm envisioning a lot of dirty looks from paper cash-preferring shopkeepers to crypto tourists when the tourists buy up all shop's inventory and leave the shopkeeper with just a few numbers in some app. EDIT: To be clear, I mean tourists each individually buying a normal amount of things using BTC, which adds up to the store exchanging it's inventory for a number in the app.

I suspect the number of people who would actually do this sort of thing is quite minuscule. They could probably be handled with something like "Well tourist, the cops here think it is a civil matter so you can spend the rest of your vacation dealing with the local legal system if you really want to buy everything in this random shop for some reason." I suspect more likely some rich people will find it more convenient…

[deleted]

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#116

Post by Anon84 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

What could possibly go wrong with moving a non-trivial fraction of a countries economy to an account that can be controlled by a single bureaucrat with absolute power to transfer the funds as they see fit with no possibility of appeal?

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#117

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

What are the US tax implications of Bitcoin being an official foreign currency?

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#118

Post by malkia » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

simiones wrote: post #55

option_greek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are using lightning wallets. So no on chain settling. No (extra) trees were harmed for hamburgers (though obviously opening and closing of channels and initial mining it self is energy intensive).

Actually, they are not even using lighning wallets. They are using a centralized payment processor that has personal accounts for users, like any other payment app. This centralized processor happens to use lightning wallets in its backend, but there is no 1:1 mapping of payment_account:lightning_wallet. And since Lightning itself doesn't interact with the blockchain except when you open/close payment channels, there…

So centralized frontend -> middle-something, decentralized backend :) - lol

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#119

Post by nomoreplease » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #22

> To warm up a skeptical public, Bukele has promised every citizen $30 in bitcoin if they sign up for a government digital wallet. Ahead of the launch, El Salvador bought 400 bitcoins, Bukele said, helping drive the currency price above $52,000 for the first time since May. > In the early hours of Tuesday the wallet had not appeared on Apple Inc., Google and Huawei’s app download platforms, however, prompting a serie…

The most logical reason is that they want to connect the human identity to the wallet/address, thereby easily removing anonymity and ensuring the government can monitor their population effectively

Re: El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as official currency, first country to do so

#120

Post by azinman2 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #108

azinman2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems their monetary policy is remittances. My guess is ppl will quickly cash out to dollars. But how will the dollars get back to the local exchanges unless people are buying bitcoin there? This seems like a disaster in the making.

Indeed, but it’s still a natural experiment to observe.

On a very poor population where even a 1% swing in valuation can make a huge difference in someone’s life. There’s also no recourse for fraud here — the industry has all kinds of scrupulous players and isn’t as locked down as traditional banking.

To me, it seems like El Salvador should have created a MoneyGram competitor and left it at that. They could remove/reduce commission without all the rest of the risks.