Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#101

Post by vrc » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

mmargerum wrote: post #78

eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

Look at Google Contributor. Users didn’t want to pay even $0.01/page, and publishers didn’t want to sign up to receive those payments. More non specifically, pubs people would pay for didn’t want to dilute their existing revenue streams with micropayments, and not enough users paid for the pubs on board. The program shut down twice.

There was also a product called TipJar that they similarly launched and killed that solve the first and second opportunity.

In both cases, Google had a huge structural advantage of already having so many cards on file and publishers with their banks hooked up and still couldn’t cross the chasm.

Somebody would need to solve these issues — not sure it’s a question of centralization

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#102

Post by meowkit » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #51

JKCalhoun wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agenda? Hit-piece? Are people allowed to have opinions any more, allowed to draw conclusions and take a side? As if Albert Einstein authored anti-quantum hit-pieces, had a classical physics agenda (or choose any other contentious issue in history where people had divided opinions).

It's a reflex I see a lot when crypto comes up. Instead of refuting any claims of the article (which almost nobody in these comments has attempted to do!), any negative commentary on crypto is dismissed as the self-preservation attempts of doomed globalist elites or bitter people who missed the boat. If only people applied the same media criticism to crypto trade publications, which are awash in conflicts of interest…

This is a problem of echo chambers. Bring the criticisms to a pro crypto forum (or a development discord channel maybe) and you will get actual answers that may or may not satisfy you.

If you haven’t noticed, HN hates crypto. Its why posts like these rise up every other week. Its a losing battle trying to argue the value and merits of crypto, when most have made up their mind and will downvote you anyways or parrot memes.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#103

Post by jrm4 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

mmargerum wrote: post #78

eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

We did. It didn't work. Probably will never. Instead you should consider what you want. You want good writing content that's easily available and persistent? Okay, Wikipedia 100% has done this, amazingly. What can we learn from THEIR model?

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#104

Post by randomhodler84 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #90

randomhodler84 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost! And speed! I did a transfer wise last week and it cost me $15 in fees. What is this, ethereum?(a joke cos ethereum is too expensive to be useful for the retail user). I could have sent BTC and it would have been quicker and cheaper.

I don't think you are including all variables. BTC fees does not include the conversion from currency1 -> btc acc 1-> btc acc 2-> currency 2. Where conversion from 1 currency to another would be more expensive than the BTC fees itselve. From which currency to which currency did you transfer?

This isn’t true at all. Right now, the actual network costs would be $0.07*2 on chain, and 0.15% for the actual sale at the receiving end on an exchange, and the “true” BTC/foreign currency rate. This beats the bad rates being offered on the forex leg of the wise transfer.

I would rather remit funds by BTC any day, but not everyone at the other end has the competency to handle this yet. One day.

Also, it took days to clear. Most of that time was waiting on the local side for cash to clear. BTC settles every 10 minutes, with a 60 min window for 6 confirmations for security. The markets are 24/7. For countries where withdrawals from exchanges hit the bank account quickly, it can be in the order of days faster…

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#105

Post by beervirus » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

randomhodler84 wrote: post #94

beervirus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$15 is right in line with current btc transaction fees. Maybe a tiny bit higher, but not much.

No it isn’t. You are making this up. A BTC tx costs $0.07 1 sat/vbyte (mempool.space) right now.

I’m looking at this:

https://bitcoinfees.co/

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#106

Post by notahacker » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #55

jes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, do you see currencies just consed up out of thin air as free of the avalanche of negatives you mentioned?

No crypto asset is currency or will be currency. They're tradable assets, not unlike Beanie Babies. And I don't see fiat that way because: 1. I use if every day. It's widely usable as currency, it's inflationary, and its value doesn't fluctuate wildly. 2. Fiat only ever promised to fix the problems with gold, and it did that (in the US and Europe at least). It didn't ride a wave of hype that it couldn't live up to. 3…

Also, ironically, crypto is at least as conjured up out of thin air as a properly operated "fiat" currency. A person decided - for whatever reason - that there should be up to 21 million of a new type of token in existence, and his software started printing them and dishing them out to random participants in the network. With a "fiat" currency the actual number in circulation goes up and down according to actual market demand for debt, and in a properly run "fiat" currency the active intervention in that market is taken by named individuals with set targets who publish minutes of the decisions they're going to take.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#107

Post by lowkey » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam

2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin.

Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by any central actors.

It is an idea who’s time has come, given the inflationary realities of today.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#108

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

seaourfreed wrote: post #99

eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

* 3% taken by credit card companies from merchants shows a rigged economy. It must get fixed * 3% interest should be paid on savings accounts (like 1900 - 1980). ~0% today is a rigged economy * Many other examples of the financial system being the root of the rigged economy (2008 Mortgage crisis, Libor rigged, front running trades, etc.). Crypto brings the freedom to compete. We need to fix the rigged financial syste…

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/hr/IP_15_... : "As a general rule, the Regulation will cap interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for consumer debit cards and at 0.3% for consumer credit cards." Problem solved.

> 3% interest should be paid on savings accounts

By whom? I'm quite happy with my 1.2% mortgage, why do you want to impoverish me by driving that up? What's the interest rate on a 25 year mortgage in Bitcoin again?

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#109

Post by jkhdigital » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #28

howdydoo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is also the author of the book "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain". It seems more like a hit piece than a news article.

While David Gerard has been very critical of El Salvador ( and mostly Bukele), he is giving information/insights about it, that you won't see elsewhere. I wouldn't dismiss it as a hit piece. He's obviously spending a lot of time researching what's happening in El Salvador with the Chivo wallet. As far as i checked/found, all the information he gave, is factually correct. But yes, he is very critical of the usage of C…

His points, which are valid, would get a much broader audience if he was able to keep his normative judgments out of his reporting.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#110

Post by 300bps » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

mmargerum wrote: post #78

eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

How does this scheme address the concept of decision fatigue?

I’ve heard that various cryptocurrencies are going to revolutionize the web economy and even replace AWS. Maybe I’m dumb. But it sounds like profound nonsense.

And I mined Bitcoin when you could still do it profitably with a GPU. I bought a new computer in March 2021 for $1,900 and used it to mine over $2,300 in ETH so far. I understand cryptocurrency fairly well but I just don’t get it.