341–350 of 394 posts
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Seems like a reasonable decision to me. I don't see how else the government could control the cartels. Plus it's got to be decent for their economy.
Yes, let's all surrender to the criminals. Embrace the inescapable mad-max future. Maybe the Sicilians should run for office in Italy?
An authoritarian banana republic is pretty much the only place where something like this would happen : https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/05/21/us-can-stop-el-salvadors...
Generally speaking banana republic is an offensive term to those living the states you’re referring to.
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0.5% + an on-chain transaction fee, which varies between $0.50 and $60.00, and of course, you have to price in exchange rate slippage over the course of your (a) initial transaction and (b) the hours-long confirmation times of a BTC payment. BTCs top tercile realized volatility is 79% [2]. Then there's the risk your exchange just up and keeps your money (counter-party risk, see Quadriga). Or that the recipients excha…
How many even middle class Americans have a fidelity account? Do you think the average El Salvadoran sending remittance AND their counterpart are banked with low cost access to international wire transfer? Transferring crypto, without KYC (which is a real concern for persons from central america who may not have documentation for a bank account or legal status in the US), for $~3 in transfer fees plus whatever rate t…
Anyone can sign up with a Fidelity account just as easily as they can sign up with an exchange, to send free USD denominated wires. As for whether counter-parties in ES charge for wire receipts, I don't know! Receiving is generally far less expensive than sending.
You appear to have completely skipped over Wise, which I pointed out to you is better in ... every way, and completely free of charge?
> Transferring crypto, without KYC...
Transferring crypto, without KYC, is a real concern to every developed country on earth. And I believe the Salvadoran sanctioned wallet KYCs ya too.
> ...which is a real concern for persons from central america who may not have documentation for a bank account or legal status in the US
I'm sorry, why are we building a system to make being an illegal immigrant easier again? I'm pro-immigration, and an immigrant myself. However, this is a country of laws is it not? Generally speaking I think we should open up immigration much more broadly. However, I also don't think it's a stretch to say if you're here illegally that's a bad thing and we shouldn't make it easier to do that?
> I'm sure there are plenty of rich ones with Fidelity accounts who haven't been the utilitarian use case for crypto transfer) could do better without packing up a bundle of cash and traveling to El Salvador on a plane.
Crypto is always available for money launders and criminals, yes.
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The capacity of BTC is so low that if it had universal adoption, every human being could do around one or two transactions in their lifetime.
What's your source on this? Are you figuring in the Lightning Network?
> Are you figuring in the Lightning Network?
No.
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I think that is a great analogy. If you view Bitcoin on the main blockchain as M0 money supply, then side channels like the Lightning Network and other centralized payment processors that have been popping up can be viewed as M1 and more commonly M2. If Bitcoin's original thesis of truly decentralized P2P cash still holds, then it should be viewed as an M0 money supply. Financial services and products build on top of…
I don't like that analogy. Unlike M0 and M1, every BTC on the lightning network represents one BTC on the L1 chain. The L1 funds are locked in order to participate in L2.
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That's new to me. It seems the argument hinges on this fact, "Bitcoin could therefore theoretically handle around 220 million transactions annually." I think the assumption that there will be no innovation in this space, optimizations will never decrease the amount of computing resources required for a bitcoin transaction, and nothing can be done, is probably incorrect. Some prospects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B…
The pollution is happening right now. You must realize that appealing to a hypothetical future solution doesn't excuse us from our obligation to do things right in the present.
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How many even middle class Americans have a fidelity account? Do you think the average El Salvadoran sending remittance AND their counterpart are banked with low cost access to international wire transfer? Transferring crypto, without KYC (which is a real concern for persons from central america who may not have documentation for a bank account or legal status in the US), for $~3 in transfer fees plus whatever rate t…
I think I actually addressed your point. Anyone can sign up with a Fidelity account just as easily as they can sign up with an exchange, to send free USD denominated wires. As for whether counter-parties in ES charge for wire receipts, I don't know! Receiving is generally far less expensive than sending. You appear to have completely skipped over Wise, which I pointed out to you is better in ... every way, and comple…
I know it isn't fruitful here to discuss whether illegal immigrants should exist (maybe we should block all their access to money supply so they and their family can starve). But they do exist, and they will seek out the lowest cost non-KYC options, and crypto looks to be a decent bet. There are other people as well without documents, such as homeless who have long lost them and people born in weird situation where their parents never sought legal documents for their existence.
>Crypto is always available for money launders and criminals, yes.
As are banks and fiat.
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BTC is quite literally made out of hot air. Burning coal to create hot air to spin turbines is the most common energy source for BTC mining. And "hot air" describes most of it's coals replacements as well.
And yet it still costs far less energy to mine Bitcoin than it does to sustain Petrodollars.
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> Using renewables to do something that doesn't need to be done is not a win. It is if it spurs development of the underlying tech. Pornography isn’t necessary, but because it was consumed in volume we ended up with ubiquitous household VCRs in the 80s and 90s.
And breaking windows spurs the local economy because people will pay to get them fixed.
Breaking a window isn’t going to be a net positive. If everyone breaks a window and replaces it, every week, at some point it’s highly likely that a more efficient process for window replacement will be developed.
> 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…