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"Failed Experiment" is euphemism for "IMF pressure."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would anyone spend a single BTC/sat. if they know it could be worth 10x more in a few weeks/years?
Because they need toilet paper today.
That's heavy editorializing: El Salvador keeps buying the Bitcoin for its strategic reserve. Businesses and citizens can keep using it. But for getting an IMF loan, IMF (which, to put it mildly, doesn't like Bitcoin) required the end to Bitcoin legal tender status. Now the businesses are free to accept it or not instead of being required to accept it. That's all. The government plans to keep buying and using it.
Why does the IMF care what denomination they use domestically?
I don't know if that is good or bad but I have heard smart economists argue both sides.
> The government, she assured, will continue buying bitcoin and having reserves in this cryptocurrency Sounds like the term "Failed Experiment" is the writer's assertion and not the government official position.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They did this to receive a loan from the IMF. The IMF was withholding the loan because of BTC and would not disburse it until they got rid of its status as legal tender.
Fair demand by the IMF. Presumably they require their loan to be repaid in fiat because of their internal charter. If Bitcoin adoption eventually removes El Salvador's ability to issue fiat, their loan can't be repaid.
Speculative asset class fails as non-speculative legal tender class. If king for the day with a sovereign wealth fund I wouldn't forbid investment choices like this on risk grounds, I mean you need risk assets as well as boring ones, right? But I have problems with the moral quality: it's like state investing in the casino business. Monaco? works fine. Anywhere else? It's got problems. Like a lot of people, I probabl…
Speaking of Sovereign Wealth Funds... Trump Calls for Wealth Fund in Executive Order https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/sovereign-wea...
Not in my lifetime
Do pro-bitcoin people still talk about goals of bitcoin being a currency that people use daily? I don't follow it closely, but that idea seems to have faded and now it's just an asset to buy and hold while it magically goes up forever.
Why would anyone spend a single BTC/sat. if they know it could be worth 10x more in a few weeks/years?
On a much smaller scale, your dollar goes up by 5% every year but you still use it everyday because all your monies are in dollars. If all your monies are in btc, you'd have to sell to buy things.
Do pro-bitcoin people still talk about goals of bitcoin being a currency that people use daily? I don't follow it closely, but that idea seems to have faded and now it's just an asset to buy and hold while it magically goes up forever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you don't really own land, you just rent it for a very long term from the government. This is probably economically a good idea, absent something like georgist land taxes. It eliminates some or all of the incentive to speculate in land, which is of course the whole problem El Salvador ran into with bitcoin as currency.
It hasn't entirely stopped rents in HK being untenably high, for many people. It has rent controls, but the system permits some very untenable outcomes which if left unchecked would re-create Kowloon Walled City. So whilst politically I agree, practically I am unsure there is no land speculation: A waterfront view remains valuable in and of itself, no matter what.
Many of those people are now likely in worse shape effectively renting a cage sized bed, but now paying the governments cut on top of whatever black market shenanigans goes on in both the slum housing and kowloon.