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El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

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Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#291

Post by liontwist »

bangaladore wrote: post #253
aydyn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What currency is stable in value? Certainly not the U.S. dollar.

A better way to put it is that a deflationary currency is, counterintuitively, not a particularly good currency. The reality is, Bitcoin and similar, are not being used to actually purchase things. Not at any notable percentage. You're "best bet" is to horde it, and that doesn't make a good currency.

I come to these threads expecting criticism about bitcoin being funny internet money run by a small group of shady characters.

But most of the comments are about how stable currency and stores of wealth are actually bad! It kind of sounds like we think bitcoin is working.

If USD is inflating and Gold is staying still, is gold “deflating”?

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#292

Post by acdha »

mlcrypto wrote: post #216
stephen_g wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite that interference, from everything I’ve read though it’s hard to describe the bitcoin experiment as anything else than a massive failure…

Massive success actually for anyone holding. Did you forget the price is $100k?

And it was $92k just less than 24 hours ago. That’s why it’s bad for currencies because people can’t make meaningful plans more than a few hours out, and it’s terrible for the economy if you incentivize everyone to reduce spending in the hopes that speculators will make you rich later.

Real currencies circulate so the same dollar is spent by many people, benefiting each of them while you’re still holding onto your Bitcoin hoping it’ll reach $110k next. You do not want to live in a country where people are staying out of the local economy.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#293

Post by whoiscroberts »

dodoisdodo wrote: post #265
karlgkk wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s being “used” as a speculative asset. That’s not a firm foundation to run a governmental monetary system on. Maybe there are other cryptocurrencies better suited to the task, but BTC isn’t

Governmental monetary systems are usually founded on hopes and prayers (and military might).

Military Might ( and hopes and prayers)

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#294

Post by freedomben »

Kindra wrote: post #268
kylebenzle wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeh, it failed so hard no one even uses it anymore.

Are you able to point to a single case where Bitcoin was used as legal tender in an every day business transaction? By this I mean, can you give an example where someone ordered a cup of coffee with Bitcoin directly and not through a proxy?

I used to pay my dish network bill with it before they stopped accepting it. I've also used it to send money to friends and family, and to donate to open source projects and other things.

If the fees were lower I'd use it for plenty of other things too.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#295

Post by ethbr1 »

dodoisdodo wrote: post #265
karlgkk wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s being “used” as a speculative asset. That’s not a firm foundation to run a governmental monetary system on. Maybe there are other cryptocurrencies better suited to the task, but BTC isn’t

Governmental monetary systems are usually founded on hopes and prayers (and military might).

Government monetary systems are all inflationary, for a lot of very good reasons.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#296

Post by brokenmachine »

Filligree wrote: post #246
redundantly wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gestures at all of the billionaires

A currency that encourages people to hold on to it instead of spending it is a disaster for the economy.

Have you seen the economy lately?

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#297

Post by markasoftware »

skybrian wrote: post #169
georgeecollins wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be "magic" that causes it to go up forever. People need a way to put large amounts of money in places that are difficult for governments to get to and /or easy to move across jurisdictional borders. Think: money launderers, people that are worried their corrupt government will seize their assets, people hiding money from someone they owe like a spouse in a divorce. These all seem to me to be reason…

But that doesn't distinguish Bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies. The thing that distinguishes Bitcoin is fame, pure and simple. Everyone has heard of it.

Fame is part of it, but it's more that it's IMO probably the only truly decentralized cryptocurrency. Not just in terms of the nodes and miners being well spread out between organizations and parts of the world, but also in terms of its development and governance. Sure, there's a relatively small group of core contributors to Bitcoin, but they don't have much fame or personality cults around them like Ethereum's Vitalik does. They are really just restricted to maintaining and adding well-agreed-upon new features to Bitcoin. Eg when Segwit happened, a lot of miners held out on supporting it for a long time becasue it was a bit controversial. Meanwhile with Ethereum, if Vitalik really pushed for some controversial change, it would probably happen. Once you go further down the list than Ethereum, things get really bad, with many cryptos' development being entirely driven by a small group of people in a for-profit company, with miners and users that will blindly update to the newest version regardless of what's in it.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#298

Post by brokenmachine »

chungy wrote: post #232
redundantly wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gestures at all of the billionaires

I dare you to come up with a single example of someone that has a billion dollars in liquid assets. They probably don't exist: "billionaries" are worth billions on paper, thanks to stocks, investments, real estate holdings, etc. All in all, billionaires are a bad example of holding legal tender, because that just doesn't happen.

The way I understand it, billionaires would hold it if they could, but then they'd actually have to pay tax when they spent it.

This way, they get to control unlimited assets without paying any tax.

Personally, I don't think that's so great "for the economy", because I actually don't care about the economy...

I care about people, and having 500 billionaires owning everything and charging everyone to use it is not the economy I want for people.

I'd rather that everyone pays tax, especially the super-rich.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#299

Post by ethbr1 »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #235
chungy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dare you to come up with a single example of someone that has a billion dollars in liquid assets. They probably don't exist: "billionaries" are worth billions on paper, thanks to stocks, investments, real estate holdings, etc. All in all, billionaires are a bad example of holding legal tender, because that just doesn't happen.

"I dare you to come up with a single example of someone that has a billion dollars in liquid assets." royal family kingdom of saudi arabia

Yeah, but they accumulate dollars for a lot of very specific reasons.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#300

Post by isubkhankulov »

purist33 wrote: post #276
portaouflop wrote: post #188

IMF gave them 1.4 billion to abandon the “experiment”: > The IMF made this a condition for a loan of 1.4 billion US dollars (1.35 billion euros). In December of last year, the IMF reached an agreement with President Nayib Bukele’s government on the loan of the stated amount to strengthen the country’s “fiscal sustainability” and mitigate the “risks associated with Bitcoin,” as it was described. —- I dislike cryptocur…

There is a book called "Talking to your daughter about Economics", where the author explains one of the problems with bitcoin is, you cant print more of it in a crisis. Maybe thats what happened here.

That may be one of the problems with bitcoin as legal tender and official state currency but not a problem with Bitcoin itself, quite the opposite: as evidenced by the genesis block’s embedded message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”
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