Time to go for this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3zlHx3ajQk
I generally keep out of crypto discussions as I do not sufficiently understand it. But this event is very easy to understand. In the beginning of the article itself:
… approved last Wednesday a confusing reform to the Bitcoin Law at the request of Bukele’s government, which had no other option to receive the $1.4 billion credit agreed in December with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Thus, this move was forced on El Salvador by the IMF.
“Forced” is doing a lot of work here. I think it was El Salvador that decided it was worth to ditch btc in favor of getting actual rescue money.
Edit: it makes sense that Bukele just told Rubio they’d be happy to be the US’ offshore prison system. Seems they really need the money.
Bitcoin isn’t good for making little purchases, firstly because it takes so long to get confirmations, if each block is 10 minutes and you need like 3 blocks to consider it confirmed that’s 30 minutes. But that ties into the second issue which is that you probably don’t want millions of tiny transactions on the Blockchain, you want them processed off-chain and then settled in bulk (to the Blockchain) periodically as a single transaction.
Finally someone who knows what theyre talking about, with an actual valid criticism.
Bitcoin is great for little transactions if you use the lightning network. Sending on the lightning network means instant payments with no confirmation required and absolutely tiny fees. And the only thing that shows up on the blockchain is the transactions to initially start using lightning network and to take your coins back off the lightning network. Transactions made over the lightning network aren’t recorded anywhere other than maybe by the people transacting.
“Bitcoin is great if you don’t use the block chain”
That’s what you just said. So why even use it in the first place?
Bitcoin is a great alternative to something like Western Union that charges high transaction fees. It’s time to transmit is comparable to a traditional back wire, but days faster than an EFT.
Everybody knows Bitcoin is too slow to process point of sale transactions on-chain but there are other Blockchain solutions that can do it. Another user mentioned the lightning network which still actually is Bitcoin but it’s another layer.
Also, I’ve just ignored the environmental impact of Bitcoin, which probably needs to move away from proof of work, or some other solution is required to lower the every requirements.
Yeah, and Zelle, Cashapp, venmo, PayPal all do the same and don’t have that environmental impact you so easily dismissed.
It’s been great watching Bitcoin grow from this digital currency for buying drugs online to having all these layers added on to almost sort of make it comparable to the systems we already have. By the time you guys actually make something that isn’t just stocks with no backing but faith, we’ll have moved on to a post-money society(probably not but I have more faith in that than blockchain ever being a useful currency.
The fact that one anonymous person could create a solution that “almost sort of make(s) it comparable to the systems we already have” is fucking amazing since all of humanity worked for like 70 years since the invention of the computer to create those systems.
Remind me again where Bitcoin is actually used vs actual databases. It didn’t solve anything and did it in an energy hungry way. It’s not “almost sort of comparable”. All of the scams that immediately came about because it doesn’t have the numerous regulations regular financial instruments have is proof. For the last decade Bitcoin has been struggling to reach parity with financial regulations. Ffs, the US PRESIDENT JUST PULLED A RUG PULL.
Blockchain is just digital speculation.
You’re the one who said it was “almost sort of comparable” to the systems we already have, I was literally quoting you. Then you disagree with yourself? Argue with yourself then, you don’t need me.
the lightning network still uses the blockchain, just less. it’s acts like an immutable public bar tab you can’t default on. once you have spent enough with another person that it is worth them conducting the transaction on chain then it does it. usually when fees are low too.
That is an extremely simplified explanation of how it works though, it is more complex than that.
Edit: another analogy i have just read is it’s like cashing in at a casino. you put some money in the house (the blockchain) and get some chips, you go in and transact with loads of people, then when it’s advantageous you can cash out and get your BTC on chain; to the house that is two transactions, cash in and then out, rather than a transaction for everyone you exchanged with on the network. that’s probs a better analogy than the bar tab one… but again, oversimplified
bar tab is more accurate, casino is easier to understand.
the actual functionality doesn’t really matter to the layperson though. basically, you put some of your bitcoin on the network (minimum amounts apply), and then you can spend that with very fast transactions and low fees. when you’re ready you can send what you have back to the chain
Stil though, how well does that work with a rapidly fluctuating value of the bitcoin? Prices would have to be superfluid for external good to have known value of some sort.
Stability of the value of savings and currency seems crucial to using it for trade.
It’ll settle eventually
Won’t the economy have to go flat (stop growing) since the supply of bitcoin is fixed? Otherwise the value of bitcoin will always be going up. Which leads to hoarding and speculating, which was part of the reason for dropping the gold standard.
Unrelated note: part of why humanity stopped making our money out of precious metals was because the metal was worth more and more while the dollar held steady. So people started shaving the edges off silver coins, and then recievers had to start weighing money at the time of transaction (which slowed it all down). Making money fungible was a huge advantage for commerce.
Bitcoin transactions feel a lot like having to double check that the coins you’re receiving are actually “real” and that you’ll be able to trade them later. The lighting network feels like a tab at the hardware store where anyone can skip town anytime they want.
When i stay stabilize i don’t mean it will stay the same for ever. it will just become less volatile the more it is uptaken. Value should continue to go up as the total supply is finite but should do so in a more predictable manner similar to gold. Of course this requires it’s widespread uptake as a currency.
Unrelated note: part of why humanity stopped making our money out of precious metals was because the metal was worth more and more while the dollar held steady. So people started shaving the edges off silver coins, and then recievers had to start weighing money at the time of transaction (which slowed it all down). Making money fungible was a huge advantage for commerce.
I’m not sure that’s really analogous to bitcoin, sure you can spend subdivisions of bitcoins but you cant shave sats off and still pass off a shaved bitcoin as a full one. a bitcoin is a bitcoin and a bitcoin with shaved sats is a bitcoin minus those shaved sats.
The lighting network feels like a tab at the hardware store where anyone can skip town anytime they want.
except with the lightning network, if your customer “skip[s] town” with lightning you can take the tab (channel) to the bank (blockchain) yourself and still get your payment. Opening a lightning channel requires staking the value of the channel up front. you can get unspent sats back but once you’ve made a transaction on the network then those sats belong to the person who you sent them to. You can try and close a channel with an older version of the channels ledger to try and “revert” the payment but there are mechanisms in place to stop this. if someone does that to you you can just broadcast the up to date ledger to the network and then you get everything in the channel including unspent sats as a penalty.
at least that’s how i understand it
Let’s not get astray here.
The reason El Salvador stopped using Bitcoin as a legal tender is not because it’s some sort of failed experiment (it had issues, but still), but due to continuous pressure of IMF interested in maintaining a US dollar-centric economy.
El Salvador is reliant on US dollars in its economy, which puts it under heavy US influence. Knowing Salvadoran currency wouldn’t be strong, Nayib Bukele suggested an alternative option - risky, volatile, but free from pressure of other countries and strongly appreciating in the long run. IMF didn’t like it, and that’s where we are.
So, when you cheer Bitcoin not being legal tender anymore, you also cheer US and IMF projecting power over the country.
Its even funnier. They just straight up promised them a billion dollar loan on the condition that they abandon bitcoin.
In December, the government struck a $1.4 billion loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that scaled back its bitcoin embrace after the lender urged officials to limit its exposure. The lender specifically advocated making acceptance of bitcoin voluntary for the private sector, which is spelled out in the hastily-approved law.
Hot damn why is this not the headline we are seeing
Thats what im wondering, because thats the blog post headline i first saw.
Site doesn’t load
The link is still working and reuters is a huge organization so its probably an issue on your side.
Nope. Their site is always broken. It doesn’t work on tor browser in strict mode. Try it.
We shouldn’t be linking to such websites
That is hardly a valid reference point for a news source. The site even works without JS which is better than most sites.
Nope. It doesn’t work with js disabled. That’s the problem
It does in librewolf, which means that Tor is just doing some extra blocking of stuff that is need for the page to load.
Exactly. The title is misleading af
They were forced to stop using Bitcoin as legal tender by external parties. The question people should be asking is why? And the answer is not that it was a failed experiment.
The experiment was to move beyond external parties. They were not able to do so and returned to using external parties. Ergo “the experiment failed”.
They were forced to do it by the IMF and US
Why do you think that they’d care about it if it was failing?
So they experimented with resisting the US and IMF and it was not successful.
We call that an experimental failure.
You really don’t get it. “Blockchain” was not the experiment. “Utilizing blockchain in the global economy” was the experiment.
And it failed.
Again, for the people in the back:
The experiment was whether or not they could be independent monetarily. Not whether or not blockchain works. But whether, in actual practice, if it could provide the monetary independence some people claim it has the power to do.
Outside influences were strong enough to overwhelm Bitcoin adoption and it succumbed to those outside influences. As an experiment seeking to test whether or not Bitcoin could resist these influences it failed.
This is how experimentation works. Now you can tweak your experiment and try again, but acting like failing at the exact thing you were trying to accomplish is somehow not an experimental failure is just delusional.
You can argue semantics all you want
They were trying to break free using Bitcoin. It seemingly worked quite well so they were forced to stop doing it. The article title is misleading in the sense that the failure isn’t from Bitcoin (quite the contrary).
You don’t even have to be pro bitcoin to see this as something bad, but feel free to keep supporting such propaganda and external influence of politics. I’m sure it really benefits you
Yeah the headline is insane. This would have been a wildly successful experiment, and now is a great time to cash out.
I guess they made a deal to sell their coins to the US.
Edit: misinformation, sorry. They’re not selling. they’re still buying. The IMF is just forcing them to strike the word legal tender
The government, she assured, will continue buying bitcoin and having reserves in this cryptocurrency. According to the National Bitcoin Office, El Salvador has 6,050 bitcoins worth $634.8 million. “President Bukele continues buying bitco
They are still keeping the mass reserves just not forcing it to be accepted as legal tender in stores. Before if someone wanted to pay in Bitcoin you had to accept it, now you don’t have to.
Yeah most commenters here just read the headline I think.
The govt just wanted the loan so they did the thing.
They’re still big into bitcoin. Seems like their holdings have gone well (only because Trump won), but their other projects haven’t been successful by any metric.
People haven’t taken up crypto as a currency, it’s just the pres using federal resources to invest in crypto. He’s been lucky so far.
Bitcoin seems like the best crypto for storage of reserve funds like gold. If it was to be used day to day something smaller and quicker would be better suited like zcash?
Sorry you’re barking up the wrong tree there mate. Crypto is a detriment to humanity.
WOAH what a surprised maybe it’s because half of the fucking country lacks electricity or internet? Really good job Bukele.
Well I’m sure the petrol-dollar will fix all that stuff like when El Salvador was a utopia before bitcoin. \s
Looking forward to them establishing monero as a legal tender
Bitcoin has gone up by at least 40k in the last three months, surely that must have made El Salvador a few pretty pennies.
It has but bukele’s bitcoin fund is still a drop in the bucket compared to their GDP. I’m seeing they own 6,055 bitcoins, which is about 600 million dollars, to their GDP which is 34 billion.
*pesos
Their national currency is USD.
This is good for bitcoin
The government, she assured, will continue buying bitcoin and having reserves in this cryptocurrency. According to the National Bitcoin Office, El Salvador has 6,050 bitcoins worth $634.8 million. “President Bukele continues buying bitcoin, we have a Bitcoin Office, we have the Bitcoin Law, bitcoin can be used in El Salvador.
They’re going to have the US by the balls like Saudi Arabia when bitcoin crosses $1mm/coin
Why isn’t this being discussed on any of the crypto subreddits? This is all I could find. Somebody’s not telling the truth:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1ihd9ek/el_salvador_buys_11_more_bitcoin_boosting/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1iflbk5/the_satoshi_statue_has_arrived_in_el_salvador_en/
BUT I WAS TOLD THERE’S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUTTCOIN AND REAL MONEY, WHAT THE HELL?!?11?!
Who could have ever seen this coming other than anyone who thought about it for the briefest amount of time?
The IMF wouldn’t give them a credit unless they stopped forcing people to accept Bitcoin as payment, which almost no one was using anyway.
officials ensure that the government will continue betting on this cryptocurrency, whose price currently exceeds $100,000.
I think that’s why El Salvador is dropping it. They never really forced people to use Bitcoin, US Dollar was also the legal tender and unlike Bitcoin, also the money of account.
But really though, can you call for IMF to stop lending to countries which buy Bitcoin using state funds when the issuer of Dollars, the U.S. has a President who has run multiple crypto/NFT scams and wants to use Government money to pump up crypto prices?
I had a Libertarian try to tell me that this was going to revitalize El Salvador just a couple of weeks ago, lmao.
Not the greatest idea to transition to a currency where every single transaction requires the same amount of energy to power a mansion for a week.
Not promoting just saying that this is misinformation. Transactions are done in bulk and on the lightning network at a tiny fraction of what you suggest.
Edit: BTC itself can only process 8 or so transactions per second(hence the high energy demand per transaction), the actual number of monetary lightening network transactions (grouped up into a these large BTC transactions) is close to a million.
Didn’t know it was that bad. Knew it was bad, but that’s depressingly bad.
Well their reserves doubled in value
It’s absolutely bonkers to me that Libertarians think BTC is a better option that fiat bills.
This shit has the have been astroturfed or otherwise psyop’d.
The thing we all knew would happen, did happen. Crypto is only useful to commit financial crimes and even for that it’s bad.
