This is such a stupid story. The World Bank isn’t set up to finance side projects. In a similar vein, Micronesia wants to send coral to space and the World Bank refused to support—scandalous!
World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
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Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#32The world bank responding to such a request shows how big of a thing Bitcoin has become. It also appears that the concerns are not strong, more wishy-washy comments that could be disputed or clarified eventually. Wonder what they say if/when more countries do inquiries and adopt Bitcoin.
The World Bank would respond to such a request from a Government, it doesn't mean it's a 'big deal'. Their statement is clear. They very politely and in so many words saying: 1) To start you are corrupt and none of this will work without solving that 2) it makes no financial sense and 3) there are real environmental concerns. When they sat 'transparency' what they mean is 'you are corrupt'. When they cite 'regulatory…
What are the regulatory, financial and legal concerns? Why are they a deal-breaker? If there were no concerns El Salvador wouldn’t need to ask any help, would it?
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#33We keep talking about how tech should be used to make a net positive change yet we allow this glorified linked list that has 0 real world benefits after a decade to get a pass because some man children run around promising it's the future.
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#34Countries that use the USD for their official currency, and are not a part of the US, have a broken financial system. They need to fix that to a point where they can implement their own sovereign currency.
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#35They 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?"
It may be but what is your litmus test about? Can you elaborate on it?
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#36Other random bitcoin concerns (apart from the environmental ones): - How about people stop accepting laundered bitcoins first and foremost? - Any bitcoins that have provably been involved in illegal stuff - Any monero/whathaveyou that come from exchanges that accept bitcoin that have received Bitcoins that were involved in illegal stuff - Will bitcoin still have value when quantum computers are around?
I'm pretty much the opposite of a bitcoin fan, but I think if you replaced "bitcoin" with "dollars" in your comment you would see that it sounds a bit weird. I bet most dollars have been involved in shady business at some point during their life. With bitcoin you have a better chance at figuring this fact out I guess.
Regarding quantum computers: Quantum computers are not known to be exponentially faster at hashing than normal computers, so they pose no threat to bitcoin.
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the case of El Salvador, Bitcoin mining will be used to bootstrap geothermal. Bitcoin can finance the energy generation and later transmission infrastructure can be added.
Ok, but geothermal energy creates pollution. It's considered a cleaner alternative to tradition energy sources insofar as it replaces existing energy demands, not when the demand is being created ad hoc.
"Geothermal power plants do not burn fuel to generate electricity, but they may release small amounts of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Geothermal power plants emit 97% less acid rain-causing sulfur compounds and about 99% less carbon dioxide than fossil fuel power plants of similar size."
- https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/geothermal/geothermal-en...
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#38Will the big banks, institutions and governments make a move against DeFi soon? Seems like it.
Big banks are already building on Ethereum, in case you didn't know
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#39>"While the government did approach us for assistance on Bitcoin, this is not something the World Bank can support given the environmental and transparency shortcomings," they added. Environmental as the #1 concern? Bitcoin's enegery:market-cap ratio - a proxy for energy vs. value to humans - is >300x better than an airline & 60x better than JP Morgan & 20x better than google's. https://twitter.com/Okcoin/status/1403…
> Bitcoin's enegery:market-cap ratio - a proxy for energy vs. value to humans - is >300x better than an airline & 60x better than JP Morgan & 20x better than google's.
Market cap is not, to me, any kind proxy for "value to humans". The utility of Bitcoin as an alternative to fiat is obviously unrelated to the number coins or their price.
Re: World Bank rejects El Salvador request for Bitcoin help
#40The US uses the dollar as a weapon and it controls the world bank. So it makes sense that they won't help to de-dollarize the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...
Chas. T. Main's former vice president Einar Greve, who first offered Perkins a job at the firm,[1]:10 initially affirmed the overall validity of the book:[12]
> Basically his story is true.… What John's book says is, there was a conspiracy to put all these countries on the hook, and that happened. Whether or not it was some sinister plot or not is up to interpretation, but many of these countries are still over the barrel and have never been able to repay the loans.