Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 421 posts

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#211

Post by freshhawk »

mlcrypto wrote: post #167
antihero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but imagine if you bought a beer for $4 and then next week the beer was actually worth $8 and the next it was worth $7 and then a few months later the beer was worth $50. The whole point of fiat is that it is stable and so you aren't fucking yourself by exchanging it for consumables.

Even if you buy with fiat, you're still giving up the opportunity cost of not buying Bitcoin. All of our pizzas in 2011 could have been millions

Yes, a stable currency also helps people to intelligently buy unstable assets. This is a point for the other team, not yours.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#212

Post by throwaaskjdfh »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #210

Well, it this is really true and going to happen, I am glad. In 2014 I was writing a book on Bitcoin, which I never finished. In the various interviews I did with influential people at the time (Yanis Varoufakis, Rick Falkvinge, Chris Dixon, etc), when offering my view, I used to say that the tipping point would have been a country adopting Bitcoin as currency, and guessing it was going to happen by 2020. I was wrong…

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I expect a catastrophe, but anything could happen. I suspect Bukele will have more influence on the outcome than Mallers or the users.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#213

Post by BreakfastB0b »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #124
bratao wrote: post #15

What would happen to the markets if Satoshi appeared and starts trading his 1 Mi in BTC?

We already have these problems in the normal stock exchange -- they're called "whales". In order for whales to capture the best value to _them_, they trade carefully and slowly so as not to shock the market.

The problem is all transaction on bitcoin are public. Satoshi even moving his coins to begin trading would cause a massive freakout. Coinbase even had to disclose this risk in their IPO filing.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#214

Post by cbzbc »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #189
antihero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but imagine if you bought a beer for $4 and then next week the beer was actually worth $8 and the next it was worth $7 and then a few months later the beer was worth $50. The whole point of fiat is that it is stable and so you aren't fucking yourself by exchanging it for consumables.

Tell how stable it is to the Venezuelans or the Zimbabweans or the Russians. And Usd isn't doing too well in the last 2 years.

Pretty sure the USD is more stable than bitcoin over the last two years.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#217

Post by nairboon »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #131
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USD has this little problem and it hasn’t even begun to manifest yet. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

No, that graph only shows a discontinuity because the definition of M1 money supply was changed on that date. They explained it fully here: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/01/whats-behind-the-rec... Sharing the graph without the context is misleading.

But the money was still printed as you see in the M2 supply: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#218

Post by adrianN »

chii wrote: post #181
SamBam wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why they would be denominated in BTC, given that BTC will be legal tender alongside USD, and USD is a much more stable currency. Making it a legal currency won't even force anyone to accept it. As far as I understand, it will simply mean that the government will accept payments in BTC.

> the government will accept payments in BTC. The telling thing would be what the gov't pays in (e.g., for tax returns). Do they pay you back in BTC? or fiat?

Seeing how not being able to print more money when you need it worked out for the government of e.g. Greece, I would be surprised if El Savlador chooses BTC for paying its debts.

Re: El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

#220

Post by foepys »

RustyRussell wrote: post #163
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, this seems like an incredibly shitty situation for the people of El Salvador. Indeed it is. The government just mandated that everyone in the country is obligated to use a startup's app, more or less. This has to be one of the most egregious examples of regulatory capture I've seen in a long time. "Legal tender" means that people are legally obligated to accept this as payment. Maybe the law will be broad enou…

Lightning developer here. I have no idea what their legal definition would be, but lightning is an open standard, and Strike is but one implementation.

How do you as a Lighting Network developer propose that the citizens of El Salvador secure their Lighting Network Channels so they don't get drained of their funds? LN channels require each party to observe the channel for malicious transactions so they can forcefully close the channel if one occurs. Can the average user handle this or are intermediaries needed?
Post reply on HN