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El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

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Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#791

Post by robertlagrant »

freen wrote: post #399
chii wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is probably the same with gold - in fact, i say gold is used even less in transactions. Yet, nobody would deny that gold cannot form a good monetary foundation . Of course, it's not the best - fiat is still, imho, better - but it doesn't mean it can't work. So why is the IMF so against bitcoins that they'd rather pay to eliminate it? Or are the IMF scared that bitcoin can actually succeed, in a way which prevents…

Ahh yes, the age old “let’s use a precious metal to denominate our currency” idea. Cryptocurrency bros are literally speedrunning the entirety of monetary system failures. All of them. You’d think, maybe after the first couple they’d read a book or something? Heck no! YOLO!

Just to be clear, people who have downvoted you are likely doing so because of tone and attitude, not because they're pro-bitcoin.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#792

Post by dlubarov »

hagbarth wrote: post #667
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A house in 5-10 years is nice, but it doesn't stop me from starving to death today.

I think it was just an analogy. The incentives are to defer purchases, if possible, which lower economic activity overall.

There are other ways to encourage spending though, like a wealth tax. Not that I necessarily support it, but that would be the more comprehensive solution to hoarding, since it couldn't be worked around by just exchanging fiat for other assets like gold.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#793

Post by robertlagrant »

redundantly wrote: post #230
tapoxi wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're not supposed to hold legal tender, by design you're supposed to spend it.

gestures at all of the billionaires

> gestures at all of the billionaires

They're billionaires because they own valuable companies, not because they have actual billions in the bank.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#794

Post by desumeku »

chowchowchow wrote: post #433
chii wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shouldn’t they have hodled and not had pizza? but then starved to death while hodling?

I don’t know that’s what I’m asking! Should you only spend your money in life or death situations in a btc economy?

If BTC was widely used as a currency then it would not be subject to nearly as much speculation. I don't know why this needs to be pointed out.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#795

Post by robertlagrant »

brokenmachine wrote: post #416
thinkski wrote: post #354

Earlier 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…

> Billionaires stole the profits of our work from us

This seems like a very skewed perspective. You work for a salary, I imagine, and you freely agreed to take that job and in return get a salary, even if the company was losing money or its share price was plummeting. I.e. taking a salary because of the security of payments.

Lots of people who invest in businesses lose all their money. You can't point at the very very peak performers who a) didn't lose their money and b) made a really valuable company instead, and decide that they owe you something other than what you agreed you would work for. That's just not how agreements work, and it's also the apex fallacy[0].

[0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Apex_fallacy

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#796

Post by desumeku »

coliveira wrote: post #301
openrisk wrote: post #278

Imagine if the amount of ingenuity that went into building the elaborate speculative digital game that is crypto was actually used to lift underdeveloped countries from their misery. Fighting corruption, enabling healthier local economies, reducing the siphoning of wealth to offshore centers, improving financial literacy etc. etc. Solving real problems is hard. Being distracted by snake oil salesmen, whether they sel…

Especially when to maintain their Ponzy scheme, crypto players need to use an enormous amount of electricity that could be used to benefit humanity. It is a huge waste or energy and time.

Bitcoin is the only large crypto that still uses Proof of Work. Almost all competitors use Proof of Stake, which uses almost no energy in comparison.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#797

Post by travisgriggs »

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…

I'm not seeing the obvious I guess. Care to share what the else was? And what the evidence is that the currency was "doing just fine" otherwise?

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#799

Post by computerdork »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #519
computerdork wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The risk that IMF would be concerned about is that the value of their holdings could go to 0 overnight by a wallet hack, data loss, an unscrupulous government employee, or the world running out of greater fools.

Yeah, that's my theory too on one reason it hasn't fully crashed (meaning "the world running out of greater fools"). Unlike tulip bulbs or the dot.com crash, bitcoin is a world-wide phenomenon so there is large supply of bitcoin buyers. Yeah, even the dot.com crash was done in the highly regulated US stock market.

Also thinking, since it's extremely difficult to regulate, was wondering if some very clever people with huge holdings have formed a cartel and are doing a lot of price manipulation to prevent it from fully collapsing (maybe even during a rise in price, causing it to drop early to prevent a major run up). But that's just a theory.

Re: El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

#800

Post by desumeku »

uni_rule wrote: post #769
tim333 wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>President Nayib Bukele’s government has accumulated 5,900 BTC, achieving profits of $333.59 million from an initial $269.74 million investment, fuelled by Bitcoin’s recent surge past $100,000. (dec 2024) I wish I could have a $333m failure like that. (edit - see also his approval rating - 91% https://x.com/stats_feed/status/1875573928250179666 )

If the only thing it can accomplish is being traded back and forth for "hard" currencies such as the US Dollar than it's no more useful than the Soviet Ruble. It's not even useful as an actual anonymous currency, it's not even anonymous without a considerable amount of legwork.

Nobody has been advertising BTC as "anonymous" currency in over a decade. It was a public ledger since day 1. This is practically a strawman.
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