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Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

bbc.com

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Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#61

Post by frays »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #55

I'm not a huge proponent of bitcoin, and am unsure how great of a move this was, but man is this article ridiculous. >The price of Bitcoin on Tuesday crashed to its lowest in nearly a month, The lowest value in nearly a month is "crashing?" And saying that caused the country to lose $3 million pretends they sold all the bitcoint that day. Using a picture of protestors in front of a massive fire implies there's some h…

Take reporting done by mainstream media on cryptocurrencies with a grain of salt.

I'm not a cryptocurrency proponent, but the standard of news regarding this space is atrocious. That's why many cryptocurrency followers focus so much on Twitter.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#62

Post by neither_color »

As someone who set up a Chivo wallet from outside of El Salvador last night, I knew these comments were going to be highly negative and schadenfreude-ic. I'm going to ignore all of it and dive right into the experience of the app itself.

Chivo's servers went offline temporarily in the morning in order to fix some bugs and add more capacity, according to tweets from the president. As far as major software product launches outside of Silicon Valley go, having your product work smoothly for millions of people on day one was unlikely, but within a few hours all was working.

This is the first high profile app to come from El Salvador, and I thought the app itself worked better than expected. It was the smoothest onboarding experience I've seen so far in a legal financial app, ever. El Salvador has a national ID called a DUI (Documento Unico de Identidad). When you first open the app, you type in your ID number and date of birth. Then you scan the front of your DUI card, the back, and take a selfie. You wait a bit for it to validate and then you're done. It knows your name already, there is no email/account registration, there are no address forms or weird credit check challenge questions to fill out. Easier than coinbase, venmo, or paypal to get onboarded and running. It takes seconds to get your $30 "drop", which did fluctuate a few cents in real time throughout the evening. This really shows what's possible with a national ID system IMO. The app has basic functions to scan to send or request payments, and has instant convertibility between USD and BTC. I was able to transfer .001 BTC from a non-affiliated wallet into Chivo and it showed "recibiendo" within minutes. I know I know, not your keys not your crypto, but nobody is obligated to use it. This is the national wallet made for ease of use and friction-less for retail purchases. If any Salvadoran wants to send or receive with any other wallet they are free to do so. They are also free to not use crypto at all and keep using USD.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#63

Post by frays »

dustintrex wrote: post #3

Unfortunate wording in the title. The price of Bitcoin "crashed" as in plummeted, and the Chivo wallet system they're trying to use in El Salvador "crashed" as in went offline. The Bitcoin network, of course, chugged merrily along, at its usual 4 or so txns/second.

Is it still 4 txns/second even with the Lightning network?

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#64

Post by shapefrog »

frays wrote: post #61
boomboomsubban wrote: post #55

I'm not a huge proponent of bitcoin, and am unsure how great of a move this was, but man is this article ridiculous. >The price of Bitcoin on Tuesday crashed to its lowest in nearly a month, The lowest value in nearly a month is "crashing?" And saying that caused the country to lose $3 million pretends they sold all the bitcoint that day. Using a picture of protestors in front of a massive fire implies there's some h…

Take reporting done by mainstream media on cryptocurrencies with a grain of salt. I'm not a cryptocurrency proponent, but the standard of news regarding this space is atrocious. That's why many cryptocurrency followers focus so much on Twitter.

Take reporting done by ANY media on ANYTHING with a grain of salt.

It is totally redundant to add mainstream or bitcoin into that statement.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#65

Post by sofixa »

neither_color wrote: post #62

As someone who set up a Chivo wallet from outside of El Salvador last night, I knew these comments were going to be highly negative and schadenfreude-ic. I'm going to ignore all of it and dive right into the experience of the app itself. Chivo's servers went offline temporarily in the morning in order to fix some bugs and add more capacity, according to tweets from the president. As far as major software product laun…

> El Salvador has a national ID called a DUI (Documento Unico de Identidad). When you first open the app, you type in your ID number and date of birth. Then you scan the front of your DUI card, the back, and take a selfie. You wait a bit for it to validate and then you're done. It knows your name already, there is no email/account registration, there are no address forms or weird credit check challenge questions to fill out. Easier than coinbase, venmo, or paypal to get onboarded and running... This really shows what's possible with a national ID system IMO

That's nothing revolutionary, neobanks in the EU have been doing this ( or an older school version where there's a video call with a real person that inspects your face and if it matches your ID) for some time now. Yes, having a national ID is some pretty basic "how to government 101" stuff. The reluctance by Americans for anything resembling that is baffling.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#66

Post by bufferoverflow »

ninetenfour wrote: post #25
bufferoverflow wrote: post #8

It's normal BTC behavior, BTC spikes up and goes down all the time. 10-15% per day moves happen regularly. Open the price chart and look at it.

Which is why BTC is an asset and not a currency. Currencies need stability of value so that everyone doesn't have to update their prices ever few hours: https://simplicable.com/new/money But maybe in the new world, all prices can be in digital and thus ever changing?

So by your strange definition unstable currencies are not currencies. Is Bolivar not a currency then?

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#67

Post by me_me_me »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #8

It's normal BTC behavior, BTC spikes up and goes down all the time. 10-15% per day moves happen regularly. Open the price chart and look at it.

At this stage its a clickbait/propaganda article.

Price went down few thousands, that's like ever other Tuesday in BTC world.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#68

Post by bufferoverflow »

grey-area wrote: post #26
bufferoverflow wrote: post #8

It's normal BTC behavior, BTC spikes up and goes down all the time. 10-15% per day moves happen regularly. Open the price chart and look at it.

That’s just another reason (along with all the others) it should never be imposed as a currency, particularly in a country with lots of people living near the poverty line. Imagine leaving home not sure if you can afford the bus ride to work or food to eat because of volatility.

I agree that people shouldn't be forced to use any currency, and should be able to choose freely. The reality is, most countries force you to use the currency they issue. The worse reality is, all of them are inflationary by design.

Cryptocurrencies give you a deflationary option. Don't like it? Don't use it.

I think cryptocurrencies are the future, and we will see more and more stores accepting them, and the conversions will happen automatically.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#69

Post by ninetenfour »

beervirus wrote: post #53
ninetenfour wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindsight? I am pretty sure that is what people are using for the definition. If the new high didn't hold, it was speculative, if it did hold and it went up further, it was its normal pricing.

What timescale defines the difference between fundamental value and speculation? A week? A decade? A century?

No one knows... I was being facetious in my earlier comment.

Re: Bitcoin’s first day as El Salvador’s legal tender

#70

Post by ninetenfour »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #66
ninetenfour wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why BTC is an asset and not a currency. Currencies need stability of value so that everyone doesn't have to update their prices ever few hours: https://simplicable.com/new/money But maybe in the new world, all prices can be in digital and thus ever changing?

So by your strange definition unstable currencies are not currencies. Is Bolivar not a currency then?

> Is Bolivar not a currency then?

It doesn't meet the requirements of a good currency. There is hyper inflation and they have redenominated it a few times now and are planning on doing it again.

Is a boat with a huge hole in its hull a good boat? Technically it is probably a boat, but it isn't what one would consider a good and desirable boat and it doesn't allow one to do what one can usually do with boats.

This is the same with BTC. You can call it a currency, but if you use it as a currency it doesn't currently exhibit the properties that one wants from a currency.

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