ES

giorgio_tsoukalos_

ES is flat

relesabe

Worry about BTC when you can find no one who does not own any. The famous Bernard Baruch or was if Joseph Kennedy story of his saying he knew to get out of the stock market when a shoeshine boy offered him a tip. Same thing happened to me, a waitress offered me a tip right before the 2000 crash. So much skepticism and/or lack of interest even now, even as every day I suspect BTC is taking further hold in El Salvador and elsewhere. Americans who have bank accounts have a far less compelling need for BTC. But a small biz owner in ES who wants to pay for things with the cash he is paid but instead of using a check has to, I guess, walk to Western Union to give them cash to pay (and pays a fee for doing so) his electric bill and has to worry about being robbed of his cash does have such a need and those who have started to accept BTC are keeping more of their profits. I have wondered if anyone in ES has been robbed of BTC. I suspect few understand about private keys -- would a robber have his own wallet that he would force someone to transfer BTC into? Seems to me like most robbers want hard cash. Of course people in ES and elsewhere still need to be quiet about how much they have.

Knotley-Hunt-Brick

Maybe we can post a Serious Post here calling for citizens of ES .

Knotley-Hunt-Brick

The amount they dedicated compares to their entire GDP is fairly very low and at this point , they are seeking options as they seem to need. Its not like they put all their treasury money into btc. Most of us though that everyone is ES now has to hold and use btc no matter the prices and its not correct. They are just seeking options at this point.

Knotley-Hunt-Brick

Exactly. The author of the bit coin standard is now there to support president crypto policies. Can't wait for what ES will brings .

Top-Dragonfruit-8199

Wtf are you on about? I didn’t say how it would happen just that Max claimed ES’s mining operation will be a top 5 op when it’s up and running. Relax man

rikbona

hey Folks, I know probably nobody care about this, but I wanted to update you all. Opensea support got back to me and they fixed my opensea issue, I can now finally see in there all my collectable avatars 😍 This day couldn't start better 🤟🏼 (some more green on btc chart would have been even better, but one cannot have everything in life, I guess 🙃) Also, today after lunch I'll drive to Verona and I will meet with a friend that lives in Oxford(UK) and another one who lives in Valencia (ES) 😍 As usual, coffee is on me --> ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️

Willheimer

ES it's heading their gets that BTC will succeed. They literally have nothing to lose. By such tax incentives they attract very wealthy (relatively) industry and companies to their country. Success ha unlimited upside while failure of these companies or individuals is hardly noticable on the country's finances. It was/is a brilliant move politically. Kinda like how RFK is courting bitcoiners... He has little to no chance of being more than a footnote but he will attract attention and investment from said bitcoiners.

CarlBMenger_

Why is it difficult for expats to move to ES? They welcome you more than the countries you just mentioned. By the way, Australia is just a shithole for #Bitcoin companies same for NZ.

relesabe

Circular economy is everything and i think i explained why i feel this way. I could be wrong but i think that is the next Big Thing that will cause the next 10 or 20-to-one increase: millions of small purchasers who do not have to get dollars in order to spend. Counting on people to hold is unrealistic but a natural thing will be people using Bitcoin like normal money, with Bitcoin never, ever hitting an exchange and a small country like ES tying up 100 or 200 thousand (1 percent) of all BTC in this fashion.

relesabe

can u clarify? ES is in zero position to make BTC only that of ES nor would it want this -- only a few countries could afford to buy up every last Bitcoin -- perhaps in fact no country could actually afford to do that, the price would skyrocket and even so some individuals would happily hold.

surfh2o

You have to understand that ES is essentially a third world country. When countries are struggling, it’s in their best interest to offer incentives for companies and people to move there and find ways of doing business with them. I think Bukele has been doing a great job trying to get his country in a better spot. How will they benefit as a state… it’s a trickle down effect I think. He’s throwing a Hail Mary and trying something different. To eliminate those taxes, he’s basically pleading for business with ES. Even though the country won’t make money from taxes, the local people will benefit by people and businesses moving there. The people are extremely poor, the people need tourist dollars, sales from food, hotels, car rentals, real estate, etc. US should do the same but they don’t need to as much as a struggling 3rd world country does. Plenty of of opportunities in US means you pay hefty taxes to live here. No opportunities in ES means they pay you to go there. How? With incentives.

javier123454321

Do you know anything about his other polices? This guy is leaving the door wide open for enriching himself and his family at the cost of the people in ES. He is accumulating power, silencing opposition, using martial law to increase his reach, and tweeting cool things. People only focus on the last one sadly.

strength_in_numbers_

I think it is rather difficult to find accurate statistics on true Bitcoin circular economies. Bitcoin, by protocol design, is pseudonymous. Unless the majority of the Bitcoin services in the BCE are run by centralized entities (eg: Chivo/River Financial in ES, or Pouch in Bitcoin Island), there is no certainty in trying to guess which addresses/transactions are involved in a particular BCE. And therefore no way to glean how much bitcoin is being transacted in that BCE. And this is by design, for Bitcoiners welcome and embrace financial privacy. Why would you care what vendors or customers do with their bitcoin? It should be no one else's business but theirs. Surely you don't wish for BCEs to be tracked and manipulated like our current economic system? For ES, Bukele surely knows the true usage of his custodial centralized Chivo wallet. He may chose to share some statistics with the public, but it will not be possible independently to verify his claims. As BCEs grow and mature with time, those partaking in it will certainly learn more about self custody and adopt decentralized solutions. Centralized service providers will always have a role in onboarding the newcomers, but with the UX and UI of self custody wallets and self hosted payment processors (like btcpayserver) improving by leaps and bounds, BCEs will hew ever closer to fully embracing Bitcoin's ethos of peer-to-peer sound money.

MyKingdomForADram

ES6?

shredslanding


Just1_More

If you like to listen to people talk macro from a Bitcoin perspective, I suggest the following, Preston Pysh - Investors podcast James Lavish - makes great posts explaining complex topics in an easily *digestible* method Dr. Jeff Ross - guest on many bitcoin podcasts, always worth listening to Lyn Alden - read her work, listen to her when she's guests on podcasts (she is hyper intelligent), Jeff Booth - Same write up as Lyn Natalie Smolenski - just watch this [video](https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1600291923478007808?t=Pl8ES_lTUqUEh5wfanbP1A&s=19) and you'll understand why to follow her. Cheers

relesabe

But in the short term, putting myself in the shoes of a small business owner, I am much more likely to adopt BTC if the price is stable or trends up. The articles about ES point to "poor adoption" but I sure think that the numbers even so far are pretty impressive. I would guess that per capita, ES BTC usage exceeds that of many developed nations. That tourism number, which may not be only due to BTC is huge -- 30% increase. I would like to know how many tourists try to use BTC when there and/or say BTC is why they chose to visit ES. In 10-20, ES may as a side-effect of BTC have an unusually tech-savvy population -- higher numbers of computer literate people, maybe some startups that do well internationally.

Shot_Ear_3787

Btw what do you mean by ES?

relesabe

My guess, based on my post, is that indeed sometimes with BTC, the price movement is not completely random -- there might be millions of dollars worth of BTC tied up in ES this month simply because of the stability with an upward trend. I am pretty sure vendors whose primary business is certainly not BTC trading are very careful about exposure -- they need a lot of convincing that it is safe to hold BTC rather than converting it to dollars. This past year so far, holding has worked out well for everyone. I guess at some point rises will contribute to selling, but for now, my guess is that a lot of vendors are holding and also a lot more vendors have felt comfortable accepting BTC in the first place.

relesabe

Seems to me that in El Salvador, stability gives vendors confidence to both accept and hold on to BTC received. I would really like to see how common it is for vendors who accept BTC to also pay for supplies and pay employees in BTC. BTC simply being help for a little while is a plus, even if the BTC is eventually converted. The longer it is held the better. It is not impossible, small as ES is, that by using BTC as a circulating currency where it is never converted, that this single small economy could tie up a significant percentage of BTC.

anonymouscitizen2

I’ll revise it. It depends on the transaction amount, destination and a ton of other factors but amounts under 50-100$ the fees can be as high as ~30%. If your sending >1000$ it will be close to 6-10% in most circumstances. Thats still much, much higher. https://www.westernunion.com/content/dam/wu/EU/EN/feeTableRetailEN-ES.PDF

Eislemike

So you believe the demand for Bitcoin would plummet just as it becomes the only way to escape extreme financial repression to the point that you lose nearly everything? Interesting hypothesis. I know I for one would be moving everything I had into Bitcoin through Bisq and taking a flight to Belize/CR/ES and not coming back. They aren’t going to get my life savings.

relesabe

Consider what would happen if the same percentage of American used BTC to the same extent as in ES -- that would be huge. People are extremely conservative about money. They are very afraid, especially if they live hand-to-mouth, of being the last person stuck with an asset. So to expect it widespread adoption would be instant or would take less than years is not very realistic. If Bitcoin does well, the relatively small number of ES citizens who became involved will have money to invest in more businesses (or in expansion of existing bizes) which probably will take Bitcoin. It just does not take many people to affect the price of Bitcoin. I wonder what the total amount of BTC held by ES citizens currently is and what the growth of this number is.

Esco-RP

I don't live there but I spent vacations in ES earlier this year. Even in Bitcoin tourist areas not everybody is accepting Bitcoin. I have not seen a single price tag with Sats. People tend to be very pessimistic about Bitcoin too. But I was there when the price hit the lows (16kUSD). Everything will take time. The population had no chance and time to get to know this (for most people difficult to understand) technology. Bukele is introducing Bitcoin courses which might help. :) p.s. only a tiny fraction of remittances are payed in Bitcoin (yet)

relesabe

Thanks. As I thought. But for BTC tourist areas, I wonder if some vendors just price things in BTC? Like if I were a visitor to a hotel and the price was a fixed amount of BTC, that might be a plus for me. If the price skyrocketed, I could always pay in dollars. Since it sounds like you live there, what is your feeling about how the BTC initiative is going? I would guess that even if most people have not used it, very few people have not HEARD of it. I also wonder how the remittances in BTC are going -- I personally feel that will be a difficult thing to change -- I have mentioned before: A mother or granny receiving money via Western Union and therefore having to take a bus trip to a WU office might actually enjoy it as an outing with her friends. On the other hand, some granny who has extra money that she did not have to spend on WU fees and bus fare will attract the attention of her friends -- one single granny in a village might be the lever that ends up converting an entire village. On yet a third hand, if the sender works in USA, he is being paid in dollars and he must convert those dollars into BTC -- this is not free and might be restricted -- maybe these exchanges have to report regular transfers out each month. Not illegal but in the future the US or other governments might make it hard to acquire BTC from exchanges. On the fourth hand: someone might serve as an informal agent -- maybe even the ES government sells or gives him a bunch of BTC and his fellow ES ex-pats buy BTC from him and he sends it to the granny's address. ES could employ hundreds of these agents throughout the US and the world -- maybe that is why Bukele wanted to acquire so many coins?

relesabe

who said anything about controlling exchange rates? The dollar itself is volatile, perhaps apparently less so than BTC but in the future, perhaps BTC's volatility vs the dollar will be because the dollar is experiencing major swings vs other things. Anyway, I was asking what was happening in ES and asserting that a large number of businesses treating BTC like the primary currency and pricing things in it, rather than in the dollar and then adjusting BTC prices would be a good thing.

nmolanog

Banks falling, infinite money glitch and rampant inflation have to be the best reason to use BTC right now. What else do you want? Besides a distributed and decentralized ledger and smart contracts what else could you expect from crypto? The tech is there, the problems that are solved by that tech are still there. The only thing that left is to people to understand and take action. Governments, institutions and msm are being very successful fighting crypto by spreading FUD on people and preventing mass adoption. Don't blame the tech being too complex or hard to be used. Countries hited hard by inflation are already using it: see Venezuela and Argentina. Need is forcing people to learn and use it even against government will. At the other Side is ES which the government toke the choice and is now being used.

Mr_Bob_Ferguson

 Vincent : They call it a Royale with cheese. Jules : A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac? Vincent : Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac. Jules : Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper? Vincent : I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.

Fakir333

Yes. Its not like the US will invade lol. Just a few well placed CIA agents with tons of cash to "destabilize " ES and prevent them from succeeding. Track record in the region suggests this route first and quietly.

L3mm3SmangItGurl

And? It’s an incentive to build the most useful shit in the world in ES.

L3mm3SmangItGurl

I mean you kind of have to think about this as a marketing campaign. Their tax base isn’t enough to move the dial on anything as it stands (<$10b). The net gain of bringing tech enterprise to ES is much more valuable than the tax loss from a few mom and pops.

Jaseur

ES is a democracy.

Katamari_420

Do you find it more profitable to sell individual cards or packs? I’ve been considering flipping ES packs when I find them

Advent127

I mainly trade ES (S&P 500 futures) and options, and mainly swing trade crypto futures (almost exclusively BTC) The strategy I use is based on price action so I use it with any instrument

relesabe

There is no competitive relationship -- best thing for ES is if Guatemala was just as vigorously getting involved with Bitcoin as ES itself was. I do not know the extent of their commerce with each other but Bitcoin would take a lot of the friction out their transactions. Moreover, every country in the world which begins to use BTC contributes to its value and this is obviously good for a treasury which holds thousands of them.

TheGreatCryptopo

ES is the test country, there's got to be a shitload of countries looking to see where this bitcoin strategy goes. I'm sure as hell sure there will be many more countries with fucked currencies following suit.

Zee09

Coming straight from El Salvadorans, they seem to really appreciate his clean up of MS13. If it takes an authoritarian regime to accomplish this goal then so be it. Democratic countries and those who promote them globally did very little when MS13 were decapitating citizens and raping girls in ES. Now they want to cry foul when crime is at an all time low? Aren’t these the same countries that arguably helped create MS13 and their ilk to begin with in the 80s? Democracies does not fit all situations and those same countries that promote them are they themselves not even true democracies.

nmolanog

ES already did it

relesabe

A completely new city with the emphasis on tech sounds good to me. Serious idea if anyone with influence is paying attention: One huge problem that we all accept is trash receptacles. They attract vermin and I do not mean this in a nasty way, also the homeless. I find garbage strewn by the containers of restaurants in the morning. My idea, which others have anticipated and planned to a more sophisticated extent is pneumatic tubes which might also be able to use ML/AI to sort input which will take trash/garbage and send it to recycling/reprocessing. This will eliminate noisy and dirty garbage trucks. In Manhattan, the meat-packing district I believe would especially benefit from this; Manhattan is a special case, because so many people live (almost everybody) in high-rise apartments, that the garbage collection and disposal present huge challenges. I was a visitor (thank heavens just for a long weekend) during a garbage pickup strike. You can't believe what it was like. A city designed from the outset using 21st century technology will be quieter, cleaner and healthier to live in. than any other city. People with money might come from all over the World to live there. It could be a center of software excellence where top devs are paid in Bitcoin and are rewarded by very favorable tax treatment. Why would you think this new city would be anything like the worst of ES? That makes no sense.

TheCassiniProjekt

First thing would be to buy a ticket to space to realize a childhood dream. Then buy a tonne of guitars, I'm thinking a Gibson LP Custom, a custom ESP, a Skervesen 8 string, a Gibson ES 335 etc. Then pull a Threatin', buy a night in a stadium, pay people to attend my gig and put it up on YT for posterity - another childhood dream realized.

WARNINGXXXXX


SmeshU

SPX is like the SP500 and its futures ES! are a separate market. Normally they trade 1 to 1 exactly, but now there is a huge gap of 40 basis points (bps). Which is very unusual. As to why this gap is there, I have no idea.

ajnsd619

I know two people who have both traveled there and had a great time. My friend from Austria just returned from ES. Says all the major businesses prominently advertise BTC, knowing most of the tourists are Bitcoin tourists. Good for them!

Rebubula_

Honestly doesn't seem like there's a reason. Big money doing big money things. No news, ES barely nudged

SaulTNuhtz

Yea, you can prepay using the estimated tax form ([1040-ES](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes))

AlmostInfinitesimal

For one, Germany has lower interest rates. Germany can borrow from external entities, and then reborrow it to higher interest countries like ES, IT, PT, GR, and reap the difference in rates for free.

AutoModerator

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OwenRas

Your reply create lots of confusion in the crypto space. Refer to https://twitter.com/HammerToe/status/1479842056851832838?t=ES9n04l0p-VGTunt_PZrjA&s=19 as how does iso20022 compliant work

247drip

Incredibly easy to make money in crypto as a trader. By far the easiest thing to trade out there. You get ridiculously strong breakouts, extremely clean patterns, massive failures that announce themselves well ahead of time, etc. You also get lag vs ES or NQ trading economic releases so you can be earlier into a move (more pronounced in alts but btc and eth still lag a bit on most exchanges). The only problem is finding a reliable broker that offers good, liquid trading instruments and has a policy that matches up with your privacy profile. And also that will not steal your money. But crypto may be the worst “investment” I have ever seen. People bastardize the “buy and hold” philosophy designed to work only with extremely standardized and actively professionally managed index instruments like SPX or DJI into some backwards justification to indefinitely hold random high beta growth stuff like crypto that will lose 80-90% on a -20% SPX move…and sometimes just never recover. Despite what “conventional wisdom” would have you believe, there is no guarantee you will make money by blindly holding random things…in fact it is exceedingly unlikely you will make money blindly holding random things. ESPECIALLY when those things are as volatile as crypto. Being “in crypto” doesn’t necessarily mean you are blindly holding significant size all the time. I consider myself fairly deep into crypto and I rarely hold anything beyond the time I am sitting at my computer and almost never hold any longer term swings for more than 1-3 days. Being “in” something to me just means you are well acquainted with the dynamics of the market…and in turn, are able to strategically place your money in advantageous situations at advantageous times such that you limit your risk while taking advantage of the unique properties of crypto that make it an attractive trade. I know this is way more than this post was probably looking for but it is written now and I am posting it lol. I hope someone gets some value Tl;dr - don’t hodl And 1) yes 2) 2012-2013 first experience with BTC as a functional means of exchange, 2017 started trading spot, 2020 trading actively and regularly on spot, 2021 futures

itimetravelwell


relesabe

i think in ES' case, it is not to get outside of its own gov management so much as to me it is crazy for countries to use currency printed by another nation. same thing in ex-french colonies in afrique. i actually see value in a gov controlling its own money -- if a war occurs, the ability to rapidly pay soldier salaries, etc. might be critical. sort of a scam, but a necessary scam. having said that, maybe a gov might have to think much harder about not just wars but all sorts of projects; i am sure this is a complex question but i know for sure that even when usa was on the gold standard and well before fed reserve, there were terrible financial crises that in the good old days when food growing was more labor intensive and it was harder to transport things, people just starved to death. But one does not have to get into complex economics: what is obvious and i think unarguable is that being unbanked severely limits one's opportunities. I doubt if u know very many people who lack bank accounts. But in ES, many are unbanked and it seems like BTC will help deal with that problem -- maybe there remain needs for traditional banking there also, but for many people, the ability to buy and sell without carrying cash, without an intermediary, will be a huge step. Just visualize what would happen to you if you had to pay for everything with cash. I believe people like that have to go to a vendor which accepts cash and then transmits it to the electric company, etc. Inconvenient and they take fees. I know of people who get paid by check and have to use check cashing places -- in fact, I gave a friend a ride to one: 3 percent off the top, plus all sorts of iD and calling your employer -- the most important thing to know about being poor and/or unbanked is that it is paradoxically expensive. I gave him a ride -- sometimes he had to take a cab and there went, say, at least another 1 percent because even if he wanted to save up several pay checks and cash them all at once to avoid multiple trips, there were limits on how much he could cash at once. He had once had a gig where the checks were written on a bank nearby and he could avoid the check cashing places. But the bank charged non-customers fees and also limited the amount he could cash per day. He said they also looked at him "sideways" was his term each time he waited in line. I don't even know why he had no bank account -- in ES I think there simply are not enough branches to service a population of very poor people: except in cities, it is not worth it for a bank to open a branch -- he may have had some legal issues. I am not sure he ever managed to fix things, so for many years at least, a significant amount of his take-home pay went to simple converting checks to cash, I assume he also paid bills through some service but we did not discuss that.

datageek9

I have some questions though: - is the Chivo wallet provided by the ES government a proper cold wallet, or a proprietary hot/custodial wallet? My understanding is it’s custodial - the keys are held by the ES gov. So are they really using Bitcoin, or a notionally Bitcoin-backed CBDC? - what happens if the ES gov decides one day that Chivo users can one day no longer withdraw Bitcoin on chain? - I assume Bitcoin advocates will say users should get off Chivo and use non-custodial wallets, but are El Salvadorans actually doing this? If not, why not?

the_far_yard

In this context, it seems like the IMF wouldn't want a smaller state such as ES to have the retention power similar to how the US has a stronghold on the USD as the global reserve?

Esco-RP

Im a BTC maxi but had a good laugh! You pretty much have a point here. Things are slow and only a tiny percentage of Salvadoreans are using it (I believe because of the volatility, prejudices and complexity, at least this was my impression when visiting ES). But that's still good for Bitcoin. We are very early!

relesabe

Yes: My interest is whether grannies receiving remittances have started to use BTC. My understanding is that they go via bus to a WU office to receive the money and then also there must be some way of paying bills with it. It is obvious that BTC would be very superior. &#x200B; HOWEVER: People get into habits especially older people and especially older people who don't have much to do with their free time. I also suspect that the WU bus trip is an eagerly-awaited outing which multiple remittees take together. They enjoy the trip, they probably see the WU employees as friends. Also, the remitter has to convert his or her salary into Bitcoin, an expense and something that governments in the USA can interfere with easily. Bottom line, overcoming the inertia of doing what the remittees have been doing for years will not be easy even if it makes a lot of sense. Note that the bus trip is not the only expense on top of WU fees: the grannies could be robbed also. Maybe they go to WU to both get the money and also pay bills but they still probably end up with some pocket money. I think it will be a gradual process: one remittee does it and is able to save the cost of the bus trip and can therefore maybe buy an appliance on time or something. That remittee will inspire other remittees to do the same thing. But I have yet to read a single story of a granny who converted to using BTC. Maybe it is already happening or maybe it will be young people like the guy in the video who are the primary users of BTC in El Salvador. Of course, international commerce facilitated via Bitcoin may end up dwarfing remittances. I am about 100 percent sure Bitcoin will contribute to ES' economy -- it just might take longer than once thought and might happen in unexpected ways.

happydreamer1972

This is the answer. To be honest I can't believe that most people haven't figured this out yet. Watch/ES and /NQ during a US trading session and watch how BTC moves. Dude above says boredom. 🤣

CasaSatoshi

Not desperate for anything bro, just reporting what's happening on the ground. We're in central America and almost everyone who's passed through ES in the last year or more did so because of Bitcoin. As reported by *themselves*. Have you actually visited the region?! You seem kinda desperate for this *not* to be true.

HelpRespawnedAsDee

Thought ES was supposed to be broke (for the 10th this year) by now.

Adamnmm

MPB is a great team with a great mission! Got to see them in action in ES last year and was impressed with both the curriculum and the professors.

y90210

I did day trading using futures markets. When you trade 1-7 /ES at a time, regular daily fluctuations can make or take $35,000 in one trading session. I found it way too stressful, the highs were good but the lows were painful. What I did was adapt the strategy that worked best for me into stock indicators in ThinkOrSwim, then setup alerts across most of the stock market. That way I don't sit around watching charts all day. I get an alert on something that would have interested me and I manually decide to trade it or not. If I trade it, I also set my exit points as alerts, so I'll be able to keep track of dozens of stocks at a time without also watching holdings. I like ToS because the mobile platform lets me view complex indicators, where as most other platforms only let you get that view in the desktop app.

Professional-Tea2397

The IMF is not compelled to lend to El Salvador, especially if the IMF believes that the government is engaging in reckless public spending. Getting a loan is a privilege, not a right. In terms of them borrowing to make repayments, this is normal but ES 10 years were trading at 5-6% in 2020 and are now more liek 17%. I wouldn't call that good news

ElderBlade

Yes I am aware. My original comment stays the article didn't come out until after Bukele called out mainstream media for not covering it. Only one article in Spanish covered the payment yesterday. News media like Bloomberg have been covering El Salvador on this topic with very odd interest and saying El Salvador will default for months. And yet when ES covers their bills on time, it's crickets.

Da_Notorious_HAM


JerryLeeDog

People throwing shade at ES are going to fade into the background over the next few years. They will say only becuase there was "greater fools" It's ironic af they say people are fools for diversifying into the most appreciating asset in human history.

free-speech-1

Definitely not dirt cheap! Some things may be cheaper than US, wages are low. Keep in mind everything is priced in the other legal tender: USD. Much of ES's food comes from Guatemala El Salvador is more expensive than Mexico.

theturingcomplete

It takes time to index new books. Here it is: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/The_Fundamentals_of_Bitcoin_The_guide_that_will_te?id=fr2kEAAAQBAJ&hl=en&gl=ES

lockmon

The volume and volatiltiy is so low right now on btc that the truth is I haven't been trading it much. Last couple weeks it has been acting like a stable coin. 10-13k btc would be a gift for those wanting to acquire more (like myself). We shall see if we get it but it prob won't happen unless the ES loses 3500.

relesabe

This was emphasized by Bukele I think: How much remittances contribute to the ES economy and therefore the huge potential effect of using BTC instead of WU. It is many tens of millions per year, maybe hundreds of millions. But as mentioned, I see some stiff resistance potentially.

relesabe

How significant is a small country (economically) like Togo (or El Salvador for that matter) using Bitcoin to the long-term viability of BTC? I know more about ES, but same ideas apply: I think most B2B and B2C transactions today with BTC involve eventual conversion to fiat. It seems to me the biggest thing that can happen to BTC is that it can move within an eco-system of businesses (and nations) where a business pays its supplier in BTC and that supplier in turn pays its suppliers in BTC. If some percentage of BTC is never converted to fiat, I think that is roughly equivalent to those BTC being "lost" (but not in a bad way) -- these are coins that are unavailable for trading. Note that even if the BTC are eventually converted to fiat, if this takes longer than it does now, that is also good for BTC. ES has millions of people and it is not impossible that the many tens of thousands of BTC could remain circulating there, saving consumers on fees. Obviously, BTC becoming an integral part of the economy of any country is incredibly good for credibility world-wide -- this means that no matter what, there is still one place where BTC can be used to live and it would not take too many even small countries to have a huge effect on price. Each new country using BTC makes it that much easier for subsequent countries to start doing what ES and Togo are doing and perhaps someday a much larger economy will adopt BTC. My bet is Russia and or Ukraine. Not sure what is happening in Lebanon now, but I would bet at least BTC awareness is incredibly high there. **TL;DR: The effect of even a small economy adopting BTC might be very large as consumers and businesses no long need to convert BTC to fiat.**

toke182

La realidad de españa explicada en 15 minutos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvk1ES-D2nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvk1ES-D2nw) De la electricidad mas cara de toda europa en el ultimo semestre a pasado a trucar los datos estadísticos, tipico de republica bananera

JerryLeeDog

What you are seeking is "legal tender". You would have legal recourse in ES and other countries already. Until it's legal tender everywhere, it'll be like trading for anything that's not USD, yes.

JerryLeeDog

How is spending 0.2% of your GDP such a gamble then? They have already made the unrealized losses back in tourism. ES is literally one of the only countries on earth with higher post pandemic tourism than pre. I'd call it a very small gamble that was blown out of proportion by the IMF and media and its not even really a gamble now because it's house money

Halo22B

Your missing the utility of being able to actually transact in BTC. The method you mention is secure if you want to purchase 1 BTC (for example) and then do nothing with it for X amount of time. Hopefully no loss of memory occurs. Barring that your BTC is secure. The HW allows you to sign an unlimited number of TXs securely without exposing your seed. Order pizza at 2am no problem, jet down to ES for 2 weeks, no problem. Move to Croatia, no problem. But under your plan every TX would require reinstalling a wallet and then uninstalling to actually spend the BTC. How long before you "slip up" or get bored or go do something else....whoops what was my seed again?

JerryLeeDog

Yeah the figure is close to 30% of tourism is due to BTC ES is one of the only countries on the planet to have higher tourism numbers than pre covid. So that much is actually factual

only_enea

I’m not here to defend Nayib. But I am debating the framing that he’s a dictator. According to Oxford Dictionary: Dictator - a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force. He certainly didn’t obtain control by force since his rating didn’t call for it. Now, any president, even here in the US has “total power” in the case of a “national emergency” which they get to define and attribute to “crises”. So, what line has to be drawn to separate a dictator and just leader? Because I see no clear examples. Not Biden. Not Macron. Not Trudeau. Not Putin. To be frank, all of this is besides the point. Fiat is by decree. Bitcoin is by choice. There are plenty in ES who don’t accept it and the law stating they have to isn’t even broadly enforced. Bitcoin is going through that natural progression, which takes time. Its network effect and rate of adoption is faster than the internet’s, Apple’s, and Amazon’s comparatively to this stage (age : 14 years) in their life. It’s not going anywhere and is only exponentially expanding.

only_enea

The natural progression for commodity money is collectible -> store of value -> means of exchange -> Unit of Account. We are currently in between SoV and MoE. And, lastly, what a strange accusation to make. There are people, today, inside and outside of already established Bitcoin economies of scale (ES, CAR) where people transact and save in bitcoin. For those outside of said jurisdictions, yes they convert, but many regions within those countries require no need for conversion.

JerryLeeDog

People can eat up that IMF shit and hate on what ES is doing all they want. I think it's badass and IMF should be as worried as they are They prey on these countries as slaves of debt. If they become self sustaining that is NOT what the powers that be want

PersonWhoThinks

Man fuck the IMF. They gonna be buying ES bitcoin bonds in 2030.

RetroFreud1

What could go right?!? Some high worth fugitives moving their assets to the country, ES's balance of trade improves, consumption increases because these entrepreneurs need cars, mansions etc, everyone wins! /s

JerryLeeDog

I'm ready with sats for any ES locals! Proof required This is a great idea honestly

JerryLeeDog

You're not sorry, it's how you cope obviously. I can't debate with that. So, I'm sorry too. You're right. BTC is going to zero and ES is ruined by buying the tiny amount they did. IMF is proud of your stance. Please disregard all the testimonials that have piled in to the thread, you obviously have the cold hard facts.

Previous-Alarm-8720

There is nothing lost for ES, since and as long as the whole country is running on BTC. Only importing goods is more expensive for ES when the BTC/USD is down. But hey, that’s only temporarily. For the longer term BTC has more potential than any other coiner monetary policy. And therefore, so has ES.

JerryLeeDog

All eyes are on ES so IMF will do anything they can to make them look like a risk imo

ShotCryptographer523

Well written. Also OP too. Mainstream media is so fucked and I think they are slowly losing their power over time. My mate went to ES and said it was really cool and mentioned the locals said violence is down since BTC was adopted and other interesting things.

FiatDiaper6000

I moved to ES from Europe. There is hope, you can see it in the eyes of the locals. The future is here boys!

JerryLeeDog

I personally think it'll take much longer for this technology to truly be used to its abilities and actually be stable enough to be a reliable store of value (downvotes incoming I'm sure but its my opinion) It's still extremely misunderstood, even in modern countries and was introduced to ES citizens on the back end of a havling that historically drops over 80% each time. So, I'm not shocked that it didn't become something major overnight

GayBearGary

How has Bitcoin helped the average citizen of ES?

JerryLeeDog

Not attributing anything to BTC. Merely saying the ES is being ridiculed for buying BTC after literally turning the country out of a nosedive. And all anyone has to say is "Bitcoin bad, make ppl lose all their money"

Fullback22x

It won’t get downvoted because this sun is pro-ETH not pro crypto. Here’s the thing, BTC doesn’t care who buys it, the miners will validate those transactions. If El-Salvatore’s president bought a bunch of BTC miners then Vitalik would have a point. If ES bought a bunch of post merge ETH, then VB would have a point. But on Facebook value this just screams VB having a bias towards BTC. Crypto doesn’t need smart contracts to facilitate transactions. It doesn’t need half the shit ETH provides. It needs a decentralized base, and competitive rates to move money. Whether that’s P2P or using some other means to facilitate that transaction. Vitalik has gotten away from the crypto core ethos. He needs to worry about centralization on how layer 2s post to ETH and worry about his consensus method being over ran by liquid staking. People pointed these risks out years ago but he refused to believe it would pose a risk. Luckily for devs we have multiple chains to run on top of. The future is multichain for these businesses and countries and they don’t have to run on 1 blockchain. They just need blockchain tech to facilitate their transactions.