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

foreignpolicy.com

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

#181

Post by el-salvador »

manigandham wrote: post #95
mmargerum wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Crypto is not necessary for micropayments and they have been tried several times already including by Google as well. It’s not a technical problem.

I'm curious about what Facebook/WhatsApp is doing in Guatemala, right next to El Salvador. They are integrating WhatsApp, the main messaging app, with a stable coin Pax Dollars and Zero fee remittances between U.S. and Guatemala.

The countries are next to each other and are similar in many ways. But one difference is that Guatemala, has their own stable local currency (Quetzal/GTQ), and the exchange rate margins charged by banks are the highest from any Central American Country. And also unofficial USD currency exchange can easily cost about 25% of the transaction.

WhatsApp is so widespread in Central America that FB has a big potential of doing what El Salvador has attempted to do with Chivo/Bitcoin.

This reminds me of the old stories of how Facebook choose which universities to allow sign up from. It was by choosing the universities close to others that had Facebook competitors.

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

#182

Post by el-salvador »

mostly_harmless wrote: post #97
mmargerum wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. This doesn't need crypto. This can be done with something like Paypal. > How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz? A solution based on spite is a bad solution.

A monthly fee could work. Like Spotify.

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

#183

Post by Speednet »

RealityVoid wrote: post #64
Speednet wrote: post #9

Color me shocked that a globalist website advocates against Bitcoin in an alarmist "news" story.

I'm sorry, but to me, Bitcoin sounds like a globalist wet dream. Besides, I find if wired when people use globalist like some sort of insult. As if wanting the whole world to be better and more connected is a bad thing.

Globalists desire that everyone conform to one system... of everything. They are against local systems and control. Bitcoin is antithetical to their line of thinking. In the financial world, Janet Yellen is a great example of a globalist. Can you imagine Janet Yellen ever supporting Bitcoin? I certainly can't.

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

#184

Post by manigandham »

noxer wrote: post #119
manigandham wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is not necessary for micropayments and they have been tried several times already including by Google as well. It’s not a technical problem.

Some kind of crypto IS necessary in the end. Not for the micropayment[1] itself but for funding/withdrawing. If this is done over traditional banking system it excludes half the world with access to the internet + adds fees that go to the bank. If its implemented trough internet mega corps instead of banks they get even more power than they already have + they will take a cut too + they will fight it to ever become a…

Crypto isn't a currency so you still need exit nodes to fiat at some point, and these are banks (or exchanges using banks on your behalf). New fintech services like Cashapp, Venmo, Paypal, Sofi, etc have done much more to improve banking access with technology than any crypto so far.

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

#185

Post by ABeeSea »

throwaway20875 wrote: post #150
KarlKemp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a few ex-spies that get to spend retirement in relative luxury in return for occasionally and sternly looking into a camera and making some completely obvious point, but with a lot of authority. There are more military veterans at McDonald’s, maybe even in relative terms. That doesn’t mean the Marines are infiltrating the McNugget supply. But, yea, top politicians and “the mainstream media” sometimes have simi…

We're well beyond your cognitive capabilities in this discussion if you're suggesting that a comparison between powerful ex-directors of the US intelligence apparatus landing post-gig jobs as political commentators at media organizations and "Marines" at McDonalds is apt (or even relevant).

If the topic is geopolitics with national security implications, I’d think the opinions and insights of former national security and intelligence officials would be valuable. There doesn’t need to be a conspiracy when Occam’s razor works fine here. They are getting paid to provide commentary people want to hear because of their unique background and perspective.

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

#186

Post by aga98mtl »

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…

> Eg. Mentioning that it's nuts to mine BTC while they could have used the geothermal energy to lower electricity costs in the country ( since they import 20%), makes more economic sense for it's citizens.

I think the point is that crypto mining finances the building of power generation in areas where it was not profitable to do so due to lack of electricity transportation infrastructure. This is great for very poor countries that cannot develop low-hanging fruit power generation opportunities due to their nonexistent grid, no paying customers, etc.

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

#187

Post by manigandham »

noxer wrote: post #113
pjc50 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. 1) nobody actually wants to pay this, though; the whole set of pre-existing arguments against micropayments apply, too many to list here. My fave one is "micropayments enable microfraud", though. And if you think cookie banners are annoying wait until you see the cryptobanners. 2) you definitely can't scale this on a blockchain, and any scalabl…

1) Why do people buy "pro" apps to remove ads but would not do that for content on the web? Also the micro fraud argument is kinda funny since everyone knows the ad business is full or fraud and everyone somehow involved with ads pays a huge junk for this. I think micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore. 2) That true. but it doesn't ha…

Every model has been tried from standard subscriptions to bundled subscriptions (Mogul, Subscribd) to ads replacement (Google Contributor, Sterling) to pay-per-article (Blendle) and they've all found limited success.

1) Most people do not value written content and news the same as other forms of entertainment. 2) There's too much decision friction and it gets worse when you have to decide per article. 3) Ads subsidize far more than most people could afford to pay for directly.

Crypto doesn't solve any of these human behavior or budget problems.

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

#188

Post by ABeeSea »

jkhdigital wrote: post #114
ABeeSea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the one using the word “globalist” as a pejorative. The opposite is isolationists and FP is a geopolitics magazine. So where is the isolationist’s geopolitics perspective you seem to claim is missing?

The opposite of globalist is not isolationist. If I could coin a word, I would choose “localist”.

The US is too big for that definition to make sense. Unless people are proposing cutting off the border and trade with Florida. On the other hand, having far-right beliefs like “anti-globalism” (whatever that means) is heavily correlated with a short distance between where one lives now and where they were born.

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

#189

Post by el-salvador »

xiphias2 wrote: post #75
audessuscest wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it doesn't mean 9% adoption though. I bet a large part of these 9% are still using $, maybe even exclusively.

Sure, and it's fine. The optionality of getting rid of the USD which totally failed and destroyed latin american countries is in itself a great thing. IMF was an asshole with El Salvador during the pandemic, and it was not the first time.

I've seen more countries in Latin America destroyed by their own countries devaluing countries than by the USD.

IMF loaned the El Salvador government 389 million during the pandemic

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/14/pr20155-el-s...

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

#190

Post by newacc9 »

LightG wrote: post #131
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember being shocked that my uncle was doing NFT trading and buying and selling digital land in the metaverse over Thanksgiving (though not his primary job). I thought I was an early adopter for having 1.4 ETH.

When you say "metaverse", what do you mean? I'm not interested in the trade itself, I just don't see the metaverse as really properly established yet so where is this taking place? Maybe I'm out of touch.

Probably Decentraland. Here's a parcel selling for 125k Mana units ~$400k:

https://market.decentraland.org/contracts/0xf87e31492faf9a91...

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