Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#101

Post by grey-area » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

deadfish wrote: post #100

grey-area wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a retailer why would you accept payment in a currency with this sort of daily volatility of 10%, which doesn’t even have instant confirmation (!!??), has slow transactions, no rollback, no fraud detection or insurance and has high fees? As a customer why would you make payment in a currency with high fees, poor ux, slow transactions and just enough anonymity to make it perfect for scammers? As a payment processor…

Not that I don't agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I think despite being digital crypto is a lot more like cash than card payments. But cash also has 'no rollback, no fraud detection or insurance'. At least you are don't have the risk of counterfeit notes.

Sure, and that's one of the reasons cash is going to disappear in the coming decades and yet another flaw in the design of bitcoin (which was modelled on physical currency or some sort of electronic gold just as that loses favour). It's not competing with cash, it's competing with free instant transfers between bank accounts and free payments (for the customer), which many people enjoy right now.

Physical currency was always an instrument of states, and now they have better ones, which retailers, consumers, and states prefer (digital currencies, not cryptocurrencies). In many countries cash usage is down to 20%, it's expensive to produce and manage and not required any more.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#102

Post by oleganza » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

beervirus wrote: post #82

oleganza wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, fundamental value is well over >$8T which is a rough estimate of the gold's monetization (because BTC is superior to gold in every respect as a store-of-value). BTC still has to climb 10x till there and all the dips on the way are corrections.

> BTC is superior to gold in every respect as a store-of-value) Maybe in some respects, but every respect? Is it really beneficial for a store of value to have wild fluctuations in its value on a timescale of days/weeks?

That's just early stages of adoption. Until BTC saturates the market, there will be huge rallies, huge drops and otherwise volatility. Right now everyone knows about USD and gold and holds as much USD or gold as they want. But there are still millions of people who don't know about Bitcoin or don't know they want to hold Bitcoin. Once Bitcoin reaches its saturation point (which could be at gold's level or 10x higher - who knows), of course it will be no more volatile than any other established commodity.

In other words, volatility is not an inherent feature of Bitcoin or any commodity whatsoever, but just a state of the markets. The better argument would be to point out some inherent issue with Bitcoin that keeps it niche, the markets thin and value subject to wild swings forever.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#103

Post by krasi0 » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #55

I'm not a huge proponent of bitcoin, and am unsure how great of a move this was, but man is this article ridiculous. >The price of Bitcoin on Tuesday crashed to its lowest in nearly a month, The lowest value in nearly a month is "crashing?" And saying that caused the country to lose $3 million pretends they sold all the bitcoint that day. Using a picture of protestors in front of a massive fire implies there's some h…

This is your typical modern "objective" journalism today. The only thing not clear is whoose financial and / or political interests they are trying to boost today. Follow the money / power, I guess?