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World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

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Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#111

Post by desine »

tsimionescu wrote: post #85
desine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of pollution does geothermal create? Honest question. I was under the impression it's just steam spinning turbines. Akin to a nuclear plant but without all the problematic radioactive fuel.

Any construction project generates significant greenhouse gas - concrete and its production are major GHG generators, and disturbing the soil, displacing living plants also tends to generate emissions. Building a new power plant in addition to all your existing ones will never reduce GHG emissions, regardless of how clean the new one is. We need to start tearing down old power plants and reducing consumption overall,…

Fair enough but I can't see that as more harmful than any other energy production. El Salvador still does not generate enough power to serve all it's citizens, so they will be building more power plants regardless. Hopefully they can balance bitcoin mining in the off-peak hours, and not create new plants solely to support bitcoin mining.

But I fail to see how geothermal's environmental impact is problematic.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#112

Post by tracedddd »

remarkEon wrote: post #60

A lot of these Bitcoin threads get old. The detractors, the pumpers, the bag hodlers ... it's all so tiresome. Here's something I want answered (all three parties are invited to respond): Is there a dependency on mature internet infrastructure that exists for a country to adopt BTC as its currency? Seems like there is to me, but maybe I'm not fully appreciating how this works or am overestimating the connectivity req…

I don’t believe there is such a requirement. I suppose it depends how deep of an integration you’re imagining. At the no-tech level you can simply have crypto backed redeemable notes - like the old gold standard.

There are also things like M Pesa/MobileMoney which have half a billion users in sub Saharan Africa. Simply an account balance held by telcos, accessible from any GSM phone. It’s custodial but could easily swap in crypto and extend to the rest of the network if there was a movement to do so.

But even without all that, vanilla crypto transactions don’t really take much bandwidth. You do need a connection of some sort but just running a light client is not very demanding by any means.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#113

Post by kemonocode »

remarkEon wrote: post #60

A lot of these Bitcoin threads get old. The detractors, the pumpers, the bag hodlers ... it's all so tiresome. Here's something I want answered (all three parties are invited to respond): Is there a dependency on mature internet infrastructure that exists for a country to adopt BTC as its currency? Seems like there is to me, but maybe I'm not fully appreciating how this works or am overestimating the connectivity req…

Mature internet infrastructure? No. Only perhaps if you want a whole bunch of validating (full) nodes, and only then for the initial bootstrapping and the whole hassle of downloading the entire blockchain up to that point, but past that, even for non-custodial wallets (AKA your keys therefore your coins), broadcasting a transaction takes very little.

For context, I'm running a full node from Venezuela. The initial bootstrapping was... painful, but keeping up with the rest of the network doesn't take much.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#114

Post by Kiro »

desine wrote: post #19

They cite environmental and transparency concerns, but somehow I believe it's more about control and ensuring the continuation of the debt based fiat systems. I have a litmus test I use when discussing global financial politics with friends - "What were the main factors you think lead to Ghaddafi's killing?"

Who are your friends? Not even my most educated friends would be able to provide an answer at all.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#115

Post by squabble »

remarkEon wrote: post #60

A lot of these Bitcoin threads get old. The detractors, the pumpers, the bag hodlers ... it's all so tiresome. Here's something I want answered (all three parties are invited to respond): Is there a dependency on mature internet infrastructure that exists for a country to adopt BTC as its currency? Seems like there is to me, but maybe I'm not fully appreciating how this works or am overestimating the connectivity req…

I believe internet is required. It doesn't need to be fast or high bandwidth.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#116

Post by akiselev »

dmitriid wrote: post #97
anticodon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghaddafi planned to stop selling oil for dollars and sell it for gold. It would be a disaster for US, because US enjoys benefits of printing as much money as it needs to purchase anything from abroad exchanging zeros and ones that cost nothing for real natural resources and goods from other countries. Just about any country leader that announced plans to stop using USD for trade, was killed in some way. Or, if USA is…

> ones that cost nothing Second largest economy in the world Second-fourth largest industrial country in the world ... costs nothing

More military spending than the rest of the world's superpowers and their vassal states combined...

Costs nothing!

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#117

Post by bawolff »

desine wrote: post #105
bawolff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is interesting only one of the discussions is allowed Is someone stopping you? Having people not be convinced is not the same as preventing discussion.

The rhetoric used stops me from bringing it up, in certain circles. I really only can bring it up with close friends/family, or anonymously on the web. I've been called anti-semitic, racist, alt-right, my intelligence insulted. Again, related to another comment in this thread, it's seen as a "conspiracy theory". The mainstream news media didn't cover it, but certain less tasteful websites did.

I mean, you presented the theory with no evidence that it happened. Your argument is basically that the united states could have done it, had motive to do it, and has a history of doing underhanded things in the past. Even if for the sake of argument i grant all of those things, its still not any more plausible than the official story. If you don't want people to call it a conspiracy theory, get some actual evidence that they actually did do it. Saying they could have done it and might have wanted to isn't enough.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#118

Post by Centrino »

desine wrote: post #19

They cite environmental and transparency concerns, but somehow I believe it's more about control and ensuring the continuation of the debt based fiat systems. I have a litmus test I use when discussing global financial politics with friends - "What were the main factors you think lead to Ghaddafi's killing?"

Gaddafi had launched the idea of a pan-African gold dinar at least since 2002. He was killed in 2011. The driving force for military action against Lybia in 2011 was not the US, but France. Obama and Hillary Clinton only reluctantly went along with Sarkozy's initiative for military action. Your suggested link between Ghaddafi's killing and "debt based fiat systems" is a conspiracy theory promoted by Russian propaganda channels like RT, but not backed up by facts.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#119

Post by squabble »

erulabs wrote: post #106
remarkEon wrote: post #60

A lot of these Bitcoin threads get old. The detractors, the pumpers, the bag hodlers ... it's all so tiresome. Here's something I want answered (all three parties are invited to respond): Is there a dependency on mature internet infrastructure that exists for a country to adopt BTC as its currency? Seems like there is to me, but maybe I'm not fully appreciating how this works or am overestimating the connectivity req…

I agree strongly with the tiresome comment, and I am a bag holder and have been interested in monetary policy and economics my entire life - but not enough to read the same 10 comments over and over every day. In answer to your question, technically no, but realistically yes. Technically, BTC “transactions” can happen "on paper", the keys can be physically handed off to each other, etc (there are plenty of possible a…

You're wrong about lightening. It costs a fraction of a cent per transaction and is meant for everyday transactions. For very large transactions, it is wiser to use the main BTC network since there is lower risk.

Edit: I'm forbidden to reply but not to edit, so I'll reply to your comment below here.

Reply: Yes. The thing you were wrong about was that lightning is not meant for everyday transactions. It actually is.

Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help

#120

Post by sofixa »

Centrino wrote: post #118
desine wrote: post #19

They cite environmental and transparency concerns, but somehow I believe it's more about control and ensuring the continuation of the debt based fiat systems. I have a litmus test I use when discussing global financial politics with friends - "What were the main factors you think lead to Ghaddafi's killing?"

Gaddafi had launched the idea of a pan-African gold dinar at least since 2002. He was killed in 2011. The driving force for military action against Lybia in 2011 was not the US, but France. Obama and Hillary Clinton only reluctantly went along with Sarkozy's initiative for military action. Your suggested link between Ghaddafi's killing and "debt based fiat systems" is a conspiracy theory promoted by Russian propagand…

And there's a nice angle that Sarkozy's election campaign was maybe financed by Lybian money ( the court case is ongoing as of now)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Libyan_financing_in_...

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