El Salvador is innovation - and an attempt to ensure that their remittance economy works more efficiently without Israeli-influenced bankers creaming >8% via Western Union etc
Ukraine is a sign of desperation, a need to get noticed and admitting that capitalism there has failed miserably. They produce little of any value that is not foreign controlled and their only real source of foreign income is about to get bypassed by a more efficient method - Nordstream2.
This means little in reality for Bitcoin - El Salvador was a breakthrough, Ukraine is a pathetic attempt to jump on the bandwagon with an economy that will take a LOT more than Bitcoin to turn it around.
2 Likes
$1m every day in remittances.
This time last year $80k of that would be skimmed off by Western Union and other parasites.
Already the people of El Salvador are seeing real benefits.
9 Likes
What’s your view? Is this a classic war of the tokens or is Vitalik right? Bitcoin’s scaling issues are known yet El Salvador Gov’t doesn’t seem to care about it. Is it becoming the classic meme of a “bitcoin bro” being unable to take criticism? Just in this case he holds public office.
If vendors don’t want to take it, they shouldn’t have to take it, especially given that they might have to change the price of their goods on a daily basis for the foreseeable future.
My understanding is that merchants must accept BTC transactions but they can automatically convert the bitcoins they receive into dollars:
2 Likes
Why? - if the price is in US$ then payment can be made in US$ or the equivalent BTC?
2 Likes
There have been bitcoin cafes and bitcoin ATMs that do this automatically. There is a company that got state government grants for innovation and they are setting up the arrivals (or was it departures) at the international airport in Queensland to accept crypto and the registers do the conversion and the merchant is paid in aussie dollars automatically. All in real time.
I doubt the issue of “exchange rate” will be a problem as there is equipment that does it for point of sales now. The merchant will be able to get their money in bitcoin or fiat while accepting BTC at the current rate.
6 Likes
They do … that’s why they are using an app that utilizes the lightning network - which does hypothetically scale.
4 Likes
My understanding is that the plan is to move away from fiat asap. Yet that’s basically Impossible given that global currency is still /€. If your prices are still in US though bitcoin functions as a store of value but not as a unit of exchange
1 Like
I see, that wouldn’t bean issue indeed but then it does raise questions as to whether it will ever set up the space for Bitcoin to become the primary means of exchange. This way it seems a bit like how the Yuan is legal tender in Macau and Hong Kong yet has no relevance as indexing the price of goods. I wouldn’t be able to say a kilo of apples costs 1000 Sats, because the value would still be in US$.
1 Like
“El Salvador recognizing Bitcoin as official currency opens the door for money laundering cartels and undermines U.S. interests,” said Dr. Cassidy . “If the United States wishes to combat money laundering and preserve the role of the dollar as a reserve currency of the world, we must tackle this issue head on.”
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1494066643625988107?t=XAHNQ0r2OvRictNDOJx1SQ&s=19
5 Likes
This is the nub of it. It’s about power.
They don’t care about jurisdiction, sovereignty or internal affairs. They care about remaining top dog, to take what they want, when they want it.
If folks aren’t using USD, the USA can’t export their inflation. They can’t print money and let everyone else pay for it. They see folks not using USD is an attack on their own welfare, their own wealth.
Some people will leap to their defense, saying they need to be world police, balancing other powers, geopolitical soft warfare, etc. But let’s call a spade a spade. What is said is completely different to why it is done. For better or worse, there is little moral high ground here.
11 Likes
Watching this unfold is just amazing, I can’t wait to see where it goes.
8 Likes
Bitcoin in El Salvador sounds great, but are people and businesses actually allowed to control their own private keys? I should probably read up on this myself, but I’ll just go ahead and ask here.
They could use non-custodial wallets and some do this, but for convenience most of them just use the Chivo wallet and trust the state to control their fund .
1 Like
If that is truly the case, great. No different from how e.g. many Europeans leave their coins on exchanges for convenience. But people really need to smarten up about this. It’s not going to end well for those who don’t, whether in El Salvador or elsewhere.
1 Like
awesome reply.
3 Likes
Edit: added to OP
3 Likes