Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeh, it failed so hard no one even uses it anymore.
The article says "92% of Salvadorans did not use bitcoin in their transactions in 2024". Which means that 8% did use it in their transactions.
8% is huge
El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
671–680 of 930 posts
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not work to become a billionaire, then donate your wealth? Or begin donating your earnings today? I would guess most people on Hacker News are in the upper decile of wealth globally — there are still billions of people living poverty. Feels like a fairer way to help people than trying to do it with other people’s wealth — the latter feels like hypocrisy.
>fairer way to help people than trying to do it with other people’s wealth That "other people's wealth" you're talking about is everyone's wealth. Billionaires stole the profits of our work from us, and they didn't do it fairly. I feel you underestimate how much a billion dollars is. https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ Nobody in history has ever worked hard enough to earn a billion dollars fairly. It's crazy…
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Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#673Structurally, Bitcoin is a lousy idea for a currency as it is intrinsically deflationary (i.e., even without the speculative inflating of the cost of a Bitcoin, the structure of the coin is such that coins become increasingly scarce and expensive as time goes by). You do not want this in your currency. The ideal is a low-level of inflation which provides an incentive to spend sooner rather than later. With a deflatio…
As a counter, inflationary systems slowly transfer more and more wealth from those without assets, to those with.
It might be different if wages grew at the same rate as inflation, but they rarely do.
The standard target rate of 2% inflation does not take into account the deflationary effects of ever increasing technology / efficiency. So in reality, it's much higher then the 2% stated figures.
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#674Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I am certain that not everything El Salvador does is progressive, even before reading this link. Some people called Obama progressive and he definitely helped destroy Libya and Syria, ordered the extrajudicial execution of a US citizen under presidential immunity, droned poor brown people living on the other side of the planet, let Citi group pick his cabinet, etc. Nevertheless, the progressive things that Obama…
El Salvador is a gang-infested shithole because US interventionists backed those who would later lead gangs to stop a left-wing revolution. The Salvadoran government often targeted civilians, and massacred peaceful protestors. Then after the civil war, the same US-backed mercenaries and soldiers who had engaged in massacres and violence came back home, they employed the same terror techniques to build up the gangs an…
What's your point?
That's what the usa did to the entire south and middle America.
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Is it even possible with BTC? I mean, how long does the transaction take to completely confirm? 30 mins? I guess if you paid way in advance; or loaded up a prepaid wallet.
Lightning transactions are instant
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and yes, which is one reason that, as it turns out, neither the US in the 01920s nor England in the 01860s experienced the famines that affected some other parts of the world at the same time. (In the 01920s Russia was experiencing its first famine that could reasonably be attributed to communism, and in the 01860s Sweden and Finland were experiencing their last famines before their transitions to capitalism.) B…
> But not, for example, Ireland in the 01840s and 01850s; that was neither, being colonialist and agricultural. England was a capitalistic economy in the 1850s, no?
Yes, and England was at that time and for almost another century causing famines in its colonies abroad by preventing them from becoming either capitalist or liberal. Ireland didn't even get the worst of it; India suffered much worse under the English yoke.
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#677Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
Governmental monetary systems have been used by every government for what now? 3000 years?
Humans didn't have the technology to build a decentralized currency for 3000 years. That tech was invented only 17 years back 3000 years from now what would be the store of value would be the question to ask.
I'm fine with letting decentralized currency maturing for say, 300 years, in some small corner of the world, before letting it loose on the rest of us.
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean, I use bitcoin and the lightning network all the time for small payments.
I wish there was usdc over lightning if there is, it’s poorly advertised does seem like a huge swing and a miss for lightning to only have unstable value units of account going over it the market clearly wants something else, and has that, on other networks at large volumes
Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
hahaha it was a good idea to remove that last sentence from your comment I'll nibble at the bait regardless: Your comment of spending patterns is missing the forest for the trees. A modern, capitalist infused, economy works like a big cardiovascular system, or like an engine. That is to say, it's happiest when blood/oil is pumping through it. Therefore, you can compare to a certain extent the different states an econ…
Thank you for your explanation, and the reason why I removed the last sentence is that I thought it was thoroughly unhelpful. I'm not intending to bait. Really I find the arguments against deflation insufficient. I get the picture that some inflation is good to keep the system running smoothly, however, the description of why inflation is desirable is lacking when explaining why deflation is necessarily bad, all thin…
It has already been competing against fiat currencies and the least we can say is that it's a success.
No other currencies without a state to promote it, and basically force it on their citizens, made it through yet Bitcoin did it.
More and more people are buying it, people are valuing it more and more, close to 100k$ now when it worth nothing a few years ago.
That's quite a success to me and and I believe part of it's success is because Bitcoin is by nature deflationary.
No one would willingly buy an inflationary currency, the only reason they success is because they are forced by gouvernement.