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One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

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Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#201

Post by el-salvador »

hailwren wrote: post #154
el-salvador wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Even so, this scheme only makes a little sense. A better approach might have been for the government to have set up a USD-based remittance program of its own. I agree with that. For example linking the U.S. banking system via ACH/Fedglobal with the El Salvador one as Panama and Mexico have done to bring down transactions costs. https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/ach/fedglobal > This is just not true.…

> But El Salvador is not Argentina though. El Salvador had never been affected by unstable currencies or unfavorable exchange rates set by their governments. You're conflating two things. Inflation has little do with how well a remittance system functions. You wouldn't say that Western Union's system functions better or worse because of the currency it is denominated in. > so it seems to me that they were trying to s…

> Western Union's system functions better or worse because of the currency it is denominated in.

When funds are sent on the same currency there is no exchange rate markup on the Western Union transaction, so it's cheaper.

> El Salvador doesn't have a great history of fiduciary responsibility either.

The judicial system was able to sentence former ex-president. In Saca's case all his assets and companies were seized by the National Commission of Property Administration. Unfortunately Funes was able to leave before being sentenced, and obtained nationality in another country to prevent extradition.

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#202

Post by koonsolo »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #188
prottog wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could consider lottery tickets as an OTM option expiring in a week with those payoffs, I suppose. If you spread 1% of your portfolio over a year and buy lottery tickets every week, you're effectively losing 1% per year with a very small chance of becoming very rich. There are probably better places to put your 1% on. ;-)

> There are probably better places to put your 1% on. ;-) I totally agree, but the argument being made is that "the potential upsides outweigh the low probability". That's not investing, that's gambling.

Your argument is that once it's high risk, it's gambling. Sorry but that is just not the case. It's a ratio. If you don't understand this, then I agree that you should stay away from anything that involves risk management.

Let's say we play a game where you throw a coin 3 times in the air. If it's not 3 times head, I'll pay you $1. If it's 3 times head, you pay me $10.

Your chance of winning is pretty high, while my chance is low. Yet, I would love to play this game.

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#203

Post by [deleted] »

px43 wrote: post #113
smcl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a snarky YouTuber doing the “this one time at bandcamp” voice is the best argument, I dunno what to tell you. To borrow his condescending tone, he is making the argument “you think line go down, but line go up!” the latter half of which is the title of Dan Olsen’s high-profile video of the cryptocurrency boom. Unless it becomes practical to pay for something with cryptocurrencies (which for me should be the primar…

For millions of people, crypto-currencies are the most convenient way to buy lots of things. I've been buying things regularly with cryptocurrencies since 2011. Domain names, video games, hosting, consumer electronics, clothing, airfare, etc. 2017 marked a pivotal point where Bitcoin specifically abandoned catering to the brick and mortar and e-commerce use cases, and started focusing on large scale financial service…

[deleted]

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#204

Post by [deleted] »

smcl wrote: post #49
px43 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recognize that every two years for the past 10 years someone has posted basically the exact same thing as what you just posted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

If a snarky YouTuber doing the “this one time at bandcamp” voice is the best argument, I dunno what to tell you. To borrow his condescending tone, he is making the argument “you think line go down, but line go up!” the latter half of which is the title of Dan Olsen’s high-profile video of the cryptocurrency boom. Unless it becomes practical to pay for something with cryptocurrencies (which for me should be the primar…

[deleted]

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#205

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

koonsolo wrote: post #202
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are probably better places to put your 1% on. ;-) I totally agree, but the argument being made is that "the potential upsides outweigh the low probability". That's not investing, that's gambling.

Your argument is that once it's high risk, it's gambling. Sorry but that is just not the case. It's a ratio. If you don't understand this, then I agree that you should stay away from anything that involves risk management. Let's say we play a game where you throw a coin 3 times in the air. If it's not 3 times head, I'll pay you $1. If it's 3 times head, you pay me $10. Your chance of winning is pretty high, while my…

> Your argument is that once it's high risk, it's gambling.

No, my argument is that once it's a matter of "you could lose everything or make it big!" is gambling.

> It's a ratio.

With totally unknown values.

> Yet, I would love to play this game.

This is exactly what the people who currently hold bitcoin are suggesting to those who don't.

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#206

Post by ypeterholmes »

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #114
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to wake up one day and internet and anything related to it just doesn’t exist. Man that’d be a great day. Remove grifters, acquire actual progress. I wonder if there were people in the 80s that said that.

No, because the internet is actually useful.

Imagine saying something so utterly subjective in such a definitive way

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#207

Post by guywithahat »

While I'm certainly not on the Bitcoin train but I would argue it's too early to say it's a failure from an investment standpoint, and there's too little evidence to say it's a failure from a policy standpoint. I would presume the goal was to become less dependent on foreign currency/other nations, which seems successfull

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#208

Post by prottog »

triceratops wrote: post #110
mihaic wrote: post #88

After so many cycles, Bitcoin has become one of the most respectable pyramid schemes available to the general public (only behind real estate speculation maybe). I think we'll see another even worse cycle unfortunately within the next 10 years.

Real estate has at least one thing going for it: you can live in a house.

Not only can you live in a house, literally every economic activity requires land on top of which you set up your capital and perform your labor. It's not the same thing at all as Bitcoin.

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#209

Post by el-salvador »

slowmotiony wrote: post #115
gillesjacobs wrote: post #3

I principly agree on all criticisms, especially the seemingly reckless investment. However, the presupposed lack of adoption of Bitcoin as a means of payment is not supported by the source bar chart. The numbers are actually pretty impressive compared to card: ~25% of businesses accept card and 20% accept Bitcoin as payment. That is impressive adoption after 1 year by any standard in a country that primarily uses cas…

20% of business accepting bitcoin is just crazy high. Living in Germany it seems that 20% of business don't even accept regular credit cards yet.

> 20% of business accepting bitcoin is just crazy high. Living in Germany it seems that 20% of business don't even accept regular credit cards yet.

The numbers may be be higher in places that cater to bitcoin tourists, like beach hotels and restaurants, but for day to day locals the transactions is lower.

During peak bitcoin usage I asked a few cashiers how many transactions have been in bitcoin, and the answer was none in normal stores, and 1-3 in the largest supermarket in the fanciest part of San Salvador.

Even the largest bank in El Salvador, only processed 7500 bitcoin transactions on their payment gateway from october 2021 to december 2021. That would be like 80 por day.

"más de 7,500 transacciones [..] en el 2021 [...]n pago con bitcoin." [1]

[1] https://www.bancoagricola.com/salaprensa/notas-de-prensa/ban...

Re: One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a failure

#210

Post by koonsolo »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #205
koonsolo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is that once it's high risk, it's gambling. Sorry but that is just not the case. It's a ratio. If you don't understand this, then I agree that you should stay away from anything that involves risk management. Let's say we play a game where you throw a coin 3 times in the air. If it's not 3 times head, I'll pay you $1. If it's 3 times head, you pay me $10. Your chance of winning is pretty high, while my…

> Your argument is that once it's high risk, it's gambling. No, my argument is that once it's a matter of "you could lose everything or make it big!" is gambling. > It's a ratio. With totally unknown values. > Yet, I would love to play this game. This is exactly what the people who currently hold bitcoin are suggesting to those who don't.

> This is exactly what the people who currently hold bitcoin are suggesting to those who don't.

I never suggested this, as you could see a few replies up:

> Right now, you came late to the game, so don't expect a x100. The risk is probably still the same, but the upside way lower. But when Bitcoin was still young, the upside was definitely worth the risk.

Nevermind, this conversation is clearly going nowhere.

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