and yet bitcoin failed in el salvador, a country that could really have had a use for something like that but nah, the bitcoin experiment failed


and u would fail ur country...

You would buy that USD with whatever you also would have used to buy the Bitcoin (your nation's currency at the current exchange rate). What would a person buy Bitcoin with? I don't mean holding USD in physical cash, I mean just holding it digitally in a bank as does anyone.

Is it not possible for a person who lives in a nation with an unstable currency e.g. Venezuela to hold USD? In this case, is Bitcoin not then just a way to subvert the government in order to de facto hold USD in a relatively stable manner?

I typically have zero interest in money & banking stuff but I'm trying to wrangle this in a way that makes sense

They adopted btc as a legal vender , they did not replace their primary currency which remains the USD

Plenty of countries operate successfully and stably by having their currencies pegged to USD. Jordan, UAE, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabaia, a bunch of tiny island nations that don't have the sophistication to run their own central bank. So no, i'd rather go with a proven theory that works over something else.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 17 2024 11:42am

you should hear a bit more from people actually living there, it's just fucked
legal tender or not it doesn't work for everyday use regardless

That view wouldn't make sense to me either because Bitcoin doesn't exist, its digital so how could it be a commodity? Is this not similar to the Tulip mania of the Netherlands, where Tulips were viewed as a commodity but actually weren't because they had zero intrinsic value beyond a mediocre fashion value?

I'm not an economist but my parents are both top tier economists so it might run in my DNA & as far as I know the prevailing view is that its really no different than the tulips

I imagine there is very strong financial incentive to keep it going since lots of people are deeply invested in either infrastructure as you mention or just holding BTC themselves, but the goal for everyone is to cash out before it crashes. The goal IS for it to fail, just fail after cashing out.

correct. and im not talking about flipping a switch from venezualan pesos to BTC over night. over time reduce raw amount of cash in your currency supply, which actually increases its value. while levying more taxation via BTC. slowly transition to a fully btc economy, because its more stable than your own currency. pegging you to the USD in a solid way.

I’m saying it behaves as a commodity in terms of valuation and infrastructure around it, as opposed to a currency. It may be a commodity that has no inherit face value, however like all commodities one cannot possess it without an opportunity cost. Mining bit coin continues to be one of the most expensive acts, and that is ignoring the energy cost and electronic waste that accumulates yearly as new semis make the process more efficient. It may crash, but if/when it does so follows the next depression with how intertwined it’s become. Push will come to shove at some point with the enormous and careless spending of the leading nations with no end game or plan

The woes of South America in general, El Salvador included, are much more complicated than El Salvador adopting btc in 2021/2022

In that case it makes sense in reality, but doesn't make sense in principle. It also seems intrinsically unstable, given that if the government figures out that enough of their population is engaged in subversion against the nation could shut it down with the stroke of a pen & send armed men to your door to arrest you.

Transitioning to BTC in this case for example Venezuela, would that not just be them ceding monetary policy to a more powerful & stable patron state, as many countries already do? Why would they transition to BTC instead of pegging their currency to USD? I don't know why they would use BTC instead of just straight pegging to USD (but I don't really know how this stuff works). My thinking is driven by the fact that the only value BTC has is that it can be traded for USD or other fiat currencies