El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender • Hacker News Board

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#681

Post by genem9 » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:24 AM UTC

distortionfield wrote: post #473

TeaBrain wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bitcoin has only failed so far as a replacement for Visa and Mastercard. So no, nobody's using it to buy coffee. It not being "used" in this context is referring to it not being used as legal tender. The law that was walked back was one which had made bitcoin legal tender throughout the country. As others have mentioned, it seems to have largely failed in being adopted as such, as surveys seem to indicate that less…

Trying to use bitcoin like this is like trying to use certificates of deposit to buy coffee. Bitcoin is a store of value, it’s nonsense to try and use it like this. Look at Ethereum if you want a medium of exchange fit for the digital age.

Lightning transactions are instant and near zero cost …

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#682

Post by _Algernon_ » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:27 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #541

pajko wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

The IMF are an arm of the US "diplomatic" apparatus. The charitable interpretation of how they operate looks like this: 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. The uncharitable interpretation of "2)" is "the c…

That is also (to a rough approximation) how all foreign aid works. It's not specific to the US.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#683

Post by genem9 » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:29 AM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #454

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

Which is why I prefer to buy my milk with euros instead.

Debased euros

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#684

Post by aucisson_masque » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:33 AM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #92

josu wrote: post #37

Here is the retained purchasing power of each of the coins since the law was passed in September 2021: Legal tender 1: -15% Legal tender 2: +115% Guess which one has been deemed a "Failed experiment".

If the value of the dollar increased or stayed 100% stable we would be in a depression. In fact, the only time the dollar increased in value for long was the great depression. The point of legal tender is that it reduces in value slowly over time, so you don't just hoard it under your bed. If someone paid me in BTC, I wouldn't spend it, I would hang on to it. That's not how currency works. Currency is the thing you w…

> I wouldn't spend it, I would hang on to it.

Well the point of money is to use it at some point, your theory is right if people were to live for the infinity but we don't so at some point you will spend all your hard earned Bitcoin because you just don't want to die rich but live rich.

That's the basic reason why all this nonsense about how bad having an deflationary economy is crap. People spend at some point their money, they don't hold on to it for ever.

At some point a balance between reward (money taking more value) and loss (time spent starving, not benefiting from your assets) is reached.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#685

Post by mhast » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:35 AM UTC

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?

There have been stores which accepted bitcoin as payment. Webhallen.com is an electronics store in Sweden which at least used to accept bitcoin (not sure if they still do).

As a general rule it's not very convenient to do so though since the value can fluctuate. (Which naturally all currencies do, but it would be kind of like paying with USD in the EU. You could do that, but most stores are not interested in the extra hassle of keeping track of multiple currencies.)

It is also not uncommon for services like VPN or IPTV streaming ("pirate streaming") providers to accept crypto.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#686

Post by cylemons » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:40 AM UTC

Turskarama wrote: post #613

cylemons wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they can criminalize bitcoin possession or use their police force and state apparatus to serveil and track all bitcoin usage. But that is way more effort than simply turning on the money printer.

It's much simpler than that, they simply make selling bitcoin a capital gain event (which it is) and tax it. They could even make a separate special rate for cryptocurrency pretty easily. Now maybe you think this is easy to avoid, in which case I would ask why you aren't already committing tax fraud.

The reason tax evasion with regular currency is so difficult is because pretty much all banks/financial institutions report your income to the state. But with crypto, especially anonymized ones like monero, the decentralized nature makes it almost impossible to track income and who it belongs to.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#687

Post by topranks » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:42 AM UTC

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…

It failed independently of this, nobody over there was using it for transactions, many businesses already didn’t accept it.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#688

Post by genem9 » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:44 AM UTC

armada651 wrote: post #367

mlcrypto wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I sleep better at night knowing my savings aren't part of a massive Ponzi scheme that's going to one day leave lots of working class people holding the bag as the savings they invested in bitcoin are transferred to the wealthy insiders.

Wait until you learn about social security.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#689

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:45 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#690

Post by genem9 » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 10:46 AM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #274

kristjansson wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely if that’s all it takes to induce them to give up it tells you something about the benefits they felt were accruing from BTC.

They're not giving up on Bitcoin. In fact, it's likely that they'll use the loan to buy more Bitcoin. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/el-salvadors-bitc...

They already are. Just bought 20