El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 6:36 AM UTC

pajko wrote: post #444

roenxi wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are loans and there are "loans". This isn't El Salvador issuing bonds on the market, it is politics that comes with political conditions. That means they negotiated it and that means they got something in exchange for any leverage they could find.

The IMF are tough guys, countries do not want to owe them, but usually don't have better options. They don't give "loans" and impose rather strict policies on everything. https://actionaid.org/publications/2023/fifty-years-failure-...

  1) A country is doing something the US doesn't like.
  2) The country is in some trouble of their own making.
  3) The IMF will come and bail them out if they would be inclined to start doing the things the US likes instead of the things it doesn't like.

Post by wqaatwt » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 6:40 AM UTC

wruza wrote: post #355

1970-01-01 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Food, medicine, transportation, education, and everything else at or near the bottom of Maslow's pyramid of needs still cannot be directly purchased with bitcoin. The other punchline to the Bitcoin joke is that it's finite. In 120 years it will begin to evaporate from existence as more and more wallets are simply lost to time.

It is highly divisible though, there’s 2.1e15 satoshi and 2.3e14 cents in the world (re google). It can lose 90% of itself before being unable to replace cents. Also, the network can just agree to change the protocol to fix this issue, should it arise. Countries do redenominations all the time.

Post by kalaksi » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 6:41 AM UTC

geysersam wrote: post #438

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But gold fluctuates rapidly at times at well. Not the same volatility but it does fall

Did you notice most countries don't use gold as their currency?

Post by cylemons » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 6:42 AM UTC

Turskarama wrote: post #76

ptero wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an asset that goes up forever. It is permissionless, very liquid asset that the governments cannot dilute. For many people this is a very big deal. A significant part of the world population lives under regimes where the governments control the money flow, heavily dilute savings in the single local fiat currency and can confiscate savings under a guise of money reform. While not nearly as bad, most democrat…

It's false safety. If the government can't get their drop of blood by diluting their fiat, they will simply do it another, more direct way. At best it will work as long as few enough people are doing it that the government doesn't care.

Post by ornornor » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 6:45 AM UTC

computerdork wrote: post #503

willmadden wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Their Bitcoin holdings more than doubled in value.

Yeah, i really dislike bitcoin, but have to admit, it has been a very profitable investment for a lot of people (and still hasn't completely crashed like expected)... ... although as a form of currency (as opposed to an investment) for El Salvador, it looks like it's a failure