ES

Rey_Mezcalero

Exactly The people of ES took the free money and cashed out to fiat. The big projects that were “successful” are pet projects of the president that without it would fall by the wayside

Abysskitten

With lots of countries now considering a strategic BTC reserve, you gotta give ES props for being ahead of the curve on this. I hope it works out for them.

Snackatttack

ES / SPY are getting absolutely hammered right now

dontblamemeivotedfor

I realize you're planning your ES vacations around spending BTC directly, but for all the merchants who don't have any way to accept it, how do you cash out within ES so that you can pay for things? Or do you do it at home before you go? I've been trying to find an answer for a while now (planning on going soon), but the best anyone has been able to tell me is that his BTC-accepting hotel let him cash out through them by giving them 25% more BTC than it was worth -- for every $1 of BTC he sent them, he only got back 80 cents.

Bright-Bag-3553

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Interesting_Ebb9052

Your Gouvernement didn’t sell ES WAR DAS BKA UND SIE MUSSTEN SELLEN! Wann kommt das endlich an in den Köpfen!? Deutschland hat mit Bitcoin soviel zu tun wie ein Hai mit Sanddünen

This_Rush_2998

good move, I took profits a few months ago and have been sitting out. expecting NQ and ES to retrace 15-20% through august/sept before a year end election rally.

mcswoll2

5 year to date: $1,000 is ES is now worth $261,550.00 $!,000 in bitcoin is now worth $4,740 Being poor is a choice you are clearly fine with making. Bitcoin would need to be worth over 3 million to be keeping up.

WerewolfCautious8906

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segment_offset

Employment data this week came in negative. DXY is up. ES (which just formed a double top on the D1) is down, BTC follows SPX. Not sure what else would be expected?

relesabe

AND: No country is going to risk holding in reserve anything but the dominant crypto. Countries are not teenagers fooling around with late-comers -- "nothing succeeds like success" is apt in this case. Even though Bukele took a risk, he still is being careful and moving deliberately. Not taking quick profits; after all, 300 million or even a billion is not huge money to a country even of ES's size. He has a plan. Now let's see what Argentina announces soon.

Tatler-Jack

If "Argentina aims to boost its economy by $45 billion in adoption"; when other (late adoption) countries begin their adoption they will surely experience a bitcoin shortage. Especially as so much BTC is already in the hands of investors, early adopters and Blackrock etc. Late purchasers will be scurrying for satoshis. I'm happy for smaller countries like ES to adopt, as this will hopefully prevent their monetary downfall in years to come. Indeed, it may even bring them "greatness" at the envy of their bigger siblings.

relesabe

I wonder how one can compare the savings in money and time (which equals money) if the commerce conducted between ES and Argentina was to be conducted in BTC? Note that with no bankers involved, a percentage is saved but it must also be a very good thing to complete the transactions without a middleman even if the middleman did not charge a fee. Also, no forex conversion, both sides using same currency.

CasaSatoshi

ES have officially 'adopted' it. Yet the people, sadly, have not. Yes, el Salvador can be positioned as the 'MVP' of Bitcoin adoption, but a *lot* of learning needs to be integrated before we're ready to move to 'beta' phase. I've written about my on-the-ground experiences in previous posts. TL:DR, ES 'Bitcoin project ' is, much to my chagrin, a lot of hype with very little substance.

CasaSatoshi

ES have officially 'adopted' it. Yet the people, sadly, have not. Yes, el Salvador can be positioned as the 'MVP' of Bitcoin adoption, but a *lot* of learning needs to be integrated before we're ready to move to 'beta' phase. I've written about my on-the-ground experiences in previous posts. TL:DR, ES 'Bitcoin project ' is, much to my chagrin, a lot of hype with very little substance.

CasaSatoshi

I went Pizza Hut in el Salvador to test this. They couldn't remember the last time anyone had paid in Bitcoin. They didn't even have a lightning enabled wallet. I was woefully underwhelmed by the paucity of Bitcoin activity in El Salvador. A lot of hype, for very little on-the-ground engagement. Even Bitcoin beach, the supposed 'Bitcoin Mecca', was a huge disappointment. Only a handful of places even qccep it. It really felt like a financial-rebellion-Disneyland for libertarian-larping gueros. I love Bitcoin, I want it to succeed, but this is hopium. See my previous posts discussing the reality on the ground in ES and other countries in Central America. More honesty and pragmatism is needed if we're to make any material progress. At the moment it's all hype and marketing, and this hampers real development.

Worth-Escape-8241

Yea I know, my point is that btc sitting at 60k vs 100k doesn’t make a huge difference in terms of ES paying its debts like the commenter suggested

gh5655

Forget NANC I’m mirroring my portfolio after ES now

IndependentSwan2086

I so want to see ES!

Nutmasher

One thing people learn with stock picking is that it all depends on Wall Street pumping. If they like a stock, they'll pump it (TSLA, PTON, AAPL, etc.). That's when one makes money. However, when the party is over (TSLA), hope you got out and shifted to the new darling. Best to just trade the futures ES or just invest in the SPX/NDX ETFs to keep up with inflation. Bitcoin is a game changer if you can swipe the bottom with TA.

wordyoprettygood

JFC I hate the internet sometimes. God forbid I try to actually USE Bitcoin, you know? Find some utility for it instead of just hodling? I figured there might be someone interested in a house in the only place on the planet that actually embraces Bitcoin and is super lenient on taxing foreign investment and Bitcoin gains. People ARE still buying properties right now, despite the market, and I encourage anyone looking to buy a property anywhere to take the market into account and make sure the purchase you’re making is right for your circumstance. Clearly it’s not a good time for YOU. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people CURRENTLY looking to move to ES for whatever reason, and I don’t know? This might actually be a good deal for them. For christs sake you know NOTHING about the property or deal.

wordyoprettygood

I’ll take either. This is me increasing my pool. And wanting to see if any Bitcoin fans are interested since Bitcoin is legal currency in ES.

pilau_masala

Solana's hot, but catching trades is tough. Enter Solana trading bots: monitor markets, snipe entries, and rake in profits (supposedly). Are they the magic formula? Here you go https://t.me/SolTradingBot?start=0uscVD1ES

Ugo_foscolo

Ehh, i remember the BTC sub justifying it during the bearmarket that it was less than 1% of their annual expenditure (or something equivalent) whereas now they're glorifying it as if thats ES ticket to being a developed nation.

jmsy1

if 85 million is the revenue, and gdp of ES is $28.74 billion, then the BTC gain represents 0.3% of GDP. Better than nothing, but not too significant.

SmoothGoing

It's legal tender in ES, not currency.

VidaSabrosa

gdp of ES is about 29b. so that btc would be about 10% of gdp. it’s quite a nest egg they have. bukele isn’t perfect but he’s going to be in the history books

VidaSabrosa

estoy muy emotionante ver que va a pasar en ES en los años que vienen

slvbtc

Cap gains applies if you invest or trade in currencies for profit. But if you simply exchange dollars to a foreign currency to pay for things while travelling there is no tax. Right now if you visited ES and used dollars to buy some sats to spend you would be obigated by the IRS to record the details of every single transaction for tax purposes. When you visit italy and buy some euros to spend do you need to record the details of every single transaction for the IRS?

throwaway92715

And it's in a part of the world where the cost of everything is just completely different. The US's GDP per capita is like 16 times El Salvador's ($70000 vs $4500). $160M in the States means something wildly different from $160 in ES.

Gullible_Elk7083

Buying groceries with Bitcoin in ES was a highlight of my trip

Buttcoinmodssuck

Jan3 does work on nation state adoption of Bitcoin. Jan3 orange pilled Bukele. I do not think ES wants more IMF funding because of the strings attached. ES is mining Bitcoin and has a Bitcoin bond in the works. Last I checked ES paid it’s IMF interest (to the surprise of many) and is 2 million + in profit buying Bitcoin. If this bull run sees 100k, ES will be heavily in profit. IMF will not be able to strong arm ES because ES is economically benefiting from Bitcoin and can use the Bitcoin circular economy to raise capital through Bitcoin bonds. Bukele started a new party in ES so when he leaves I assume he will set things up so that his policies continue after this term. ES will not end Bitcoin as legal tender because that law change has enabled billions of capital inflow via tourism and investment from Bitcoiners who want to support ES.

relesabe

I agree. But I am 100% sure using BTC as legal tender is better than using another country's currency as legal tender (i.e., the dollar). ES is not part of the United States -- it does not even border the USA.

BarnacleReasonable36

Visited for my honeymoon. It was gorgeous, and the people were kind. Driving seems like a continuous drag racing competition. I would buy a home there but would not consider living in ES full time until more infrastructure is put in.

burrrrrssss

> The solution then would be to fix the underlying government structures. You don't fix government structures by moving to a dictatorship. Moving to dictatorship destroys those institutions because they don't mean anything anymore. > Putin didn't start as a dictator either. A lot of people praised him for bringing order and stability after the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now look how well Russia is doing. Russia could have gone the way of Estonia or Lithuania and prospered as a democratic post-soviet state but it took shortcuts and now its a shithole. > Quasi-dictatorial actions are always wrong unless you think dictatorships are good. > You're acting like no country has ever solved a problem with gang crime without resorting to dictatorship. I don't view this as a black and white, good or bad, type of issue. I view dictatorships as a bell curve; a few horrid outcomes, mostly shit in the middle, and a few good outcomes. We'll be able to pick and choose examples that support our viewpoint. South Korea & Singapore are both leaders in their domains and are examples of functioning democracies that started out as dictatorships. I'm not saying ES is definitively on the SK or SING path, just merely pointing out that you and me aren't going to be able to properly judge the outcome 20 years from and keep your mind open to the possibility that there are good outcomes to dictatorships.

suninabox

> These viewpoints are only possible if the underlying governmental structures were equitable in the first place and in the case of the ES government and its society, it's hard to argue they were. The solution then would be to fix the underlying government structures. You don't fix government structures by moving to a dictatorship. Moving to dictatorship destroys those institutions because they don't mean anything anymore. Once you build the kind of state infrastructure where one man can unilaterally change the law and imprison people it inevitably gets abused whenever that one man realizes he has made lots of enemies and if he ever loses power he'll be killed by those enemies. The state and civil institutions get cannibalized to keep 1 man alive (and usually hideously wealthy). Now you have a very easy way of imprisoning any political enemies who are now an existential threat to the dictator, who then spins them as existential threats to the state, since he is the state. And of course, he must create incentives for other powerful people to protect him so you get lots of corruption, masses of public money is funneled not to economic development but to line the pockets of oligarchs. Putin didn't start as a dictator either. A lot of people praised him for bringing order and stability after the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now look how well Russia is doing. Russia could have gone the way of Estonia or Lithuania and prospered as a democratic post-soviet state but it took shortcuts and now its a shithole. >quasi-dictatorial actions are auto-labeled as the wrong course of action when we aren't the ones living in those conditions of gang rule. Quasi-dictatorial actions are always wrong unless you think dictatorships are good. You're acting like no country has ever solved a problem with gang crime without resorting to dictatorship. For all the mythologizing of Bukele most of the drop in the murder rate happened BEFORE he took power. Like Hitler he coasted on the achievements of the prior administration and then took credit for them while delivering marginal improvements at the cost of massively concentrating power. The problem is most people just directly attribute whatever condition the country is in to who is in charge right now, rather than thinking about how long it takes prior decisions to take effect. If the country is bad now its because who ever is in charge now, not the person who came before. If the country is good now, its because of who is in charge now, not who came before.

anonymous-postin

I’m sure if you lived what you’re preaching in ES you’d backtrack almost immediately.

anonymous-postin

He’s right; honestly wouldn’t hate for some application of his policies here in the US. Gangs and organized crime approach leniency as weak points to exploit. We’ve seen it in prison when high profile gang members are released back onto the main line from solitary confinement on the premise of “inhumane punishment” only for murders and violent crime to spike in and out of prison. Legal documents between a representative and client can’t be searched by the authorities; can you guess how contraband was being smuggled in lol? Minors are used for the more severe crimes because they’ll get a slap on the wrist, etc. I’m from Mexico where we have a similar situation as ES with the cartels. It’s understood that the police in certain states are completely compromised. It’s so bad that law enforcement from opposing sides are not allowed within their jurisdiction lol. It’s understood they risk their lives if they’re found without permission. The same has happened in Dallas back in the 60s and 70s with the mafia and currently we’ve had mass corruption cases throughout California, Chicago, Texas and Georgia; all of it tied back to gangs and organized crime. We need separate applications of the law towards validated gang members. Believe me when I tell you that the state of affairs in Mexico and ES can happen on American soil and you truly do not want it.

burrrrrssss

An independent judiciary is extremely important to the functioning of a democracy, I don't think anyone rational would disagree with that but: > If the executive simply removes judges whenever they give a ruling the executive doesn't like, then the judicial branch of government ceases to be a meaningful check on the power of the executive, it exists merely to rubber stamp the executive and create the illusion of oversight. > You're meant to change the constitution through the legislature, not by corrupting court proceedings. These viewpoints are possible only if the underlying governmental structures were equitable in the first place and in the case of the ES government and its society, it's hard to argue they were. It's a decidedly American assumption that the initial structure was equitable and that quasi-dictatorial actions are auto-labeled as the wrong course of action when we aren't the ones living in those conditions of gang rule. Would I personally every support something like that in the US? Heck no, our institutions are still pretty solid and I trust that we'll get to the right answer eventually and the system of checks and balances pulls through. But in the case of ES, I withhold judgement because armchair philosophizing and criticizing certain actions as an idealist while their society is going through a crisis we can't even begin to imagine is imo a bum position

longlostkingdoms

Which to be fair, is a rather rational direction for the country’s political structure and not something I see as only reinforcing one’s drive for self-preservation and power (although i’m sure that’s part of it). A one-term limit (in this case for ES, of five years) is quite limited and, I believe, fails to give the chance of delivering any longer-term initiatives while experiencing the impacts of them. The drastic reduction in crime was something along the lines of the country undergoing “shock therapy”, and while radical change can be beneficial, so is the rebuilding phase that should naturally follow with the initial momentum created. So it’ll be interesting to see how that rebuilding plays out in his second term. TLDR - I don’t know much about Bukele, but I think the option for a president to serve two terms in general is beneficial and provides more clarity into policy impacts.

relesabe

I think the idea of companies with very decent revenue setting up shop in ES is a huge validation of Bukele's efforts. Every millionaire living there has a not trivial effect on the Salvadoran economy -- his crime reduction and friendliness towards BTC may make ES into a major financial center. Again, don't listen to fruit vendors -- they net maybe 1000 bucks a year and every such vendor in the country together has less effect economic effect than a single multinational corporation paying taxes and employing citizens in El Salvador.

Halo22B

Mi primera Bitcoin....is the Spanish language course created for ES high schoolers. Freely available to download

relesabe

There is no downside to ES adopting BTC -- what would be weird is a huge economy suddenly doing: ES is the right size for a test case especially because it was already not using its own money. Exciting will be international transactions between ES and, for example, Argentina. Also locals doing remote s/w development and being paid in BTC. It seems to me that with very little risk NB has improved the economy quite significantly if only because he attracted BTC tourists. I think the long-term value of his moves will, naturally, only be clear in years to come.

relesabe

I agree in that its economy is small (I disagree with your term "dumpster" -- NB has made difference and Rome was not built in a day...) but as a test case, it at least provides valuable information. I was always skeptical about remittances working, although 1 percent is not completely trivial and helps to show how eventually WU can be bypassed for remittances. The Big Thing is tourism which without a doubt has gone up due to both BTC but probably more so because of crime reduction. How can anyone be pessimistic about involving an asset that has appreciated more than one million percent since 2010? You can't rule out BTC being a potentially important economic tool for states and I sure would prefer (were I a Salvadoran) BTC instead of dollars printed by a foreign country. As for basics (I think you may mean literally plumbing like clean running water) they cost money and Bukele came up with a brilliant way to bring money in ES.

LovelyDayHere

Bank accounts can be seized. Especially in a country without a strong rule of law basis. > I conclude by pondering the potential reception within the Bitcoin Cash community. The Bitcoin Cash community has traditionally not been afforded much of a voice in this subreddit. But while the idea of a "tokenized fiat derivatives" (TFD)" like RiftenLabs' mUSD proposal might find support in the Bitcoin Cash community, because it is based entirely on BCH and smart contracts and existing oracles, and proposes something similar to other overcollateralized TFD's ... ... I think selling the concept of integrating with El Salvadorean bank accounts is harder to sell. The ES economy seems to me to have a large informal part which could just use dollar cash and BCH instead of expensive BTC or BTC substitutes plus bank accounts. To have a BCH wallet could replace most functions of a bank account without the usual charges of a bank.

RealJackONeill

Its not so much crypto in el salvador. There was a huge initial adaptation from the wallets and cash but its died down a lot. Now, the country itself is doing fucking amazing. But its largely due to arresting like 60k gang members. People can actually visit now. Went from most to least dangerous places to visit. Plus its cheap as hell. Just helped build my mom a house that woulda cost us 10x in the states. If things keep up ES is going to see exponential growth. Government went from as corrupt as could be to actually hard on crime and corruption. Land values are sky rocketting from people in the us finally being confident enough to buy big land back home. Those same people are priced out of buying in the usa.

relesabe

People are fixated on usage only 2 years after it was introduced as legal tender -- wait until the enough of these BTC and tech-literate kids start becoming entrepreneurs. don't worry because fruit vendor won't accept BTC -- one successful company in ES would literally make up for all the fruit vendors in the country. Mentioned before: Argentina may be quietly accumulating BTC before they announce that they are doing so. Before they announce commercial agreements between them and ES which will almost certainly cause the price of BTC to pop. Argentina has a huge economy compared to El Salvador. Perhaps they are buying 10 or 20 BTC each day, maybe more.

dimonoid123

ES ? Trades 5 days a week, 24 hours a day.

SirArthurPT

The "legal tender" misconception; "legal tender" is nothing but a poor choice of words in English, it doesn't even translate to "legal" anything in other languages; example in ES/PT "moneda/moeda de curso forzado/forçado" (forced course currency). The English choice of words made some people believe there's "illegal tender", when there's no such thing. The opposite of legal tender is volunteer trade. The real power of legal tender comes down to forcely settle debt. Eg. A owes $100 to B, both A and B are in the USA. If A wants to pay B with Bitcoin (or anything else than USD) and B refuses A still owes $100 to B, if A wants to pay in USD and B refuses A no longer owes anything to B because he can't be forced to settle in any other form of payment. This applies for Bitcoin, but would also apply to Euro, as Euro isn't USA legal tender, or the opposite, if they were Europeans that would apply for Dollars. If both parties agree to settle the debt in anything else than legal tender, then the debt is settled. "What if A pays in cocaine?" - from the debt perspective and taken B agreed, the debt is settled. However cocaine is an illegal good to hold and transact with, so both could be in trouble with law enforcement, but for what counts to debt settling, it is settled.

relesabe

I am baffled why a country whose interests are far from completely aligned with those of the United States would use the US currency, especially as inflation looms here (in the USA) also. Argentina and any country for that matter stands to lose nothing from at least encouraging (as El Salvador did) the mining and acceptance Bitcoin. Tourism is but one benefit. Usage of BTC in international transactions (like between ES and Argentina) would deprive banks of their cut and this would be an easy proof of concept -- some company in Argentina that normally purchases goods from ES probably using dollars tries paying in Bitcoin. The risk is pretty small and probably offset easily by savings in foreign exchange fees.

slvbtc

Legal tender status is unnecessary. The reason bitcoin was given legal tender status in ES was to make sure it could be used in transactions with no record keeping burden and no tax burden. In Dubai there is already no record keeping burden and no tax burden because there is no income tax and no capital gains tax. You can spend bitcoin in Dubai as easily as you can spend bitcoin in ES. If bitcoin transactions are not taxed and payments in bitcoin are legal then it can be used and adopted easily without a government having to give it legal tender status. In ES bitcoin is officially legal tender. In Dubai bitcoin is defacto legal tender because it can be used freely as legal tender without needing any government decree.

Outrageous_Word_999

They may be, but this is way too much. Only a couple million people on the planet have a million+ in cash. None of them want to live in ES.

Narf234

People are free to do what they like. It will be VERY interesting to see how things turn out in ES if Bitcoin goes parabolic. I can’t wait for the mental gymnastics explaining why it was still a bad choice for a county to buy BTC.

AUFSTEH

I can get three passports with great benefits for less money. $1M for a country like ES is ridiculous, they'll end up lowering the price.

relesabe

wait until argentina starts doing what ES is but on a scale proportional with its much larger economy.

lordsamadhi

>They have all the currency benefits of the dollar Yea, such as receiving all the inflation without any of the infrastructure, military, or stimulus spending that America gets. But yea, I agree with you. All these articles talk about how Bitcoin is bad for ES, but they never discuss how bad the dollar is for them.

lordsamadhi

It's not like they made it mandatory to use it. They are still a dollarized nation which accepts Bitcoin for taxes/utilities. But they aren't making legal tender demands the way the US does with dollars. So, of course there is going to be a decades long transition period. They were the first country to do it, there's going to be bugs. Give them a fucking break. The next country will do a MUCH better job because they will learn from ES's mistakes. But ES will still retain their scarce asset, and benefit from transitioning to it before the rest of the world realizes how incredible it is.

Halo22B

Well ES has been on BTC standard for over a year now, how come they haven't been crushed?

ILikePracticalGifts

What exactly is in this playbook they wrote? Hardly anyone in ES actually uses bitcoin.

user_name_checks_out

> On the plus side firearms laws in ES aren't overly restrictive. Firstly, that would be a minus, not a plus, and secondly, the statement is false, firearms are not available to the general population.

stevegee58

In spite of the apparent lawlessness in the US it's still very safe compared with El Salvador. On the plus side firearms laws in ES aren't overly restrictive. That said, there are whole swaths of ES that are truly lawless and dangerous. Add to that it's a tiny country about the size of Massachusetts. On top of that the average white American can only speak English. You'd better speak at least passable Spanish to live in ES. White Americans stick out like a sore thumb, something you don't want.

shadowdax

This post is neither here nor there. If you really can predict the future, just short ES and make a fortune and stop wasting time on reddit. This post is about SOL.

iwishiremember

There are 195 countries in the World per Google. China tried to ban BTC, others tried as well and they all failed. I know it may sound as a joke (in 2023) but Bitcoin is legal tender in ES. No one is punishing ownership in EU where I reside. Yes, you will be taxed if you sell it. It is an asset class.

Designer_Restaurant1

El Salvador won't give a single fuck. IMF is just doing their job, and ES is going to understand that and ignore.

slvbtc

El Salvador Singapore or Dubai. Choose Dubai if you have made a lot of money and want to spend time travelling through europe as its close. Choose ES if you have less money and would rather travel through south america. Right now if you are looking at south east asia choose singapore as theres no capital gains tax, thing is SG is as expensive as Dubai. For the time being forget places like Thailand as they have made it illegal to transact with bitcoin and this will make adoption non existant and bitcoin startups in the country non existant. Hopefully they reverse that decision and allow bitcoin innovation to flourish though. But for now Thailand is one of the most bitcoin UNfriendly places on earth. ES SG and Dubai all have zero tax on bitcoin usage but out of El Salvador Singapore and Dubai I would personally choose Dubai because it is still so cheap and easy to get permanent residence and its growing so fast that by 2040 it will likely be more developed and wealthier than Singapore. I really see a future where Dubai is the home of digital finance globally.

DonerTheBonerDonor

Argentina surpassed El Salvador despite ES actually making Bitcoin a national currency. Crazy.

i_reddit_at_reddit

One of us is seeing the wrong thing. Likely me. I'm looking at ES1!

iwishiremember

ES is a guineapig in the BTC adoption on a state level. I can imagine, if BTC goes parabolic in next 5-10 years, they will do very well. I also hope they tackle economic issues, corruption and mostly gang crime (MS-13) so it becomes a a hot spot for tourism.

iwishiremember

Sadly, the actual adoption in ES has not been so great if you listen to locals and not BTC maxis.

TroutFishingInCanada

> I guess converting to cash in ES would incur additional cost if you cannot spend it directly as BTC. And circle gets the square.

poisenloaf

Could be.. I just checked to send money from US to ES and fees ranged from 1.5% to 9% depending on how sender provides the source funds and the receiver wants to receive them and takes up to 8 days. With Strike, it takes minutes to setup an account, link a bank account, and buy BTC at a flat 1%. You can then send for nearly 0 with their low priority (12 hour) send. I guess converting to cash in ES would incur additional cost if you cannot spend it directly as BTC.

mpgipa

When bitcoin was above 40k i saw people on the street who i have never ever say anything about crypto , talk about crypto. The market seller, the fast food worker etc everyone was talkign about crypto because of the bull market. Now i don't see anyone talking about it . Same as ES give it a few years :)

relesabe

I think what happens to BTC in various respects in the next 2 decades will be surprising, Price is one thing, but what happens with the legal tender thing in ES and elsewhere will be another and will of course have a bearing on price. I suspect no matter what a lot of coins will be lost -- I sure know I forget passwords from old accounts. It is true probably that things I can't imagine forgetting might well be lost in 20 years but I also mentioned periodically going over the clues. It is also true that older people do remember the distant past (in part due to re-remembering -- you remember not the original memory but the memory of that memory) which is what I am counting on. My biggest fear is theft, not forgetting. Theft seems very unlikely since there is no location where the private key exists and the clues have some other precautions. We'll see what happen decades from now and certainly discovering that the coins are gone would be quite a blow -- I guess this has happened to quite a few people for various reasons including bankrupt exchanges.

nomdeplume_alias

I don't trust that Max Keiser character. The Senior Bitcoin Advisor to the country. He seems like a scammer/used car salesman. Bad vibe from him. I do like Dr. Saifedean Ammous however as the Economic Advisor for ES (he's doing it for free)

SmoothGoing

>turn it into bitcoin when I land as that is their local currency. Can't turn anything into bitcoin. ES local currency is USD. Bitcoin is local legal tender. You have to deal with your tax agency rules. The one you are subject to. Yes some reporting rules exist for exchanging into yen or euros too. Logging tx ID and what it was spent for is probably not necessary.

relesabe

I have said this before: If you are a vendor in El Salvador, low volatility makes it more likely that they will not be in a hurry to change BTC into fiat. This keeps BTC off of exchanges. Vendors who receive BTC might never sell it but use it to pay utility bills (assuming ES allows and encourages this) and this might mean that BTC just continue to circulate in ES, reducing BTC that are available to speculators.

Dangerous-Quality-79

They are a victim. This is not even a controversial topic. Give me something and I will use that something to do X with it. then it turns out you did anything else but X is fraud (look up the definition of fraud before you rebut).... give me $20k for ES futures and I lose it on 2 hands of blackjack is illegal, and should be. If you want to argue "crypto is ushering the new era of finance" followed by "if an 80 year old gives me all their money it's their own stupid fault" you are the problem.... YOU are the PROBLEM.

relesabe

Are you kidding? Why would someone use AI to promote ES BTC policy?

relesabe

The compelling reason for BTC in ES is indeed that so many are unbanked there.

relesabe

you were there early in the process. i would guess that the amount of users has grown significantly since then and for people doing any significant amount of business, the use case for BTC (assuming they were only accepting cash in the past) is very compelling. i had a friend who due to tax issues was unbanked for a while: the state kept draining and closing his bank account. i ended up giving him a ride a couple times to a check cashing place. obviously inconvenient to have to get money this way but that was only the beginning: imagine not being able to buy anything online. or, as he did, having to pay his electric bill using someplace like western union where u give them cash and then they pay the bill for you. the cost in time plus the fees they charge are significant. i assume many ES citizens have to deal with a similar situation -- once they find out how much they save by "being their own bank" using BTC, I see no reason that they would go back to using wads of crumpled US dollars. any small business which does everything in cash would be at a competitive disadvantage over a BTC-using business -- they may not in the long run be able to compete at all.

information-zone

Assuming you’re talking about an Electrum server on your node, it functions as an adapter/translator for some wallet software so they can talk to your node. If sparrow doesn’t need it and if you only use sparrow, then you don’t need ES, but other wallet software might need it.

relesabe

I don't think the current situation is billions being held by ES citizens but eventually. Even 1 billion dollars' worth held -- plausible to me -- would have an impact. But I think it will, just in ES, be much more. Note that this is not savings, it is simply BTC not converted into dollars but used for transactions in a "circular economy" -- I would guess currently the average amount of money held, not net worth, of ES citizens is fairly high given that people probably do not go into debt as readily as US citizens do. I am sure some ES government economist has figures on how much BTC is held by its citizens, how long on average before it is converted into currency and what the trends look like.

relesabe

I am aware, as my cat is, that there are other countries than ES and Guat and she even mentioned that these countries have a lot bigger GDP that those two nations. (An unusual cat? Maybe you underestimate your own.) But are there other countries besides ES (Guat I am not so sure about) where the government supports BTC as much?

relesabe

I said, "I think..." I do not know about being able to pay utilities in ES with BTC but if one could, do u find it a stretch that people would hold onto BTC received instead of converting the BTC to dollars? (Assuming that recipients are not worried about declines in price -- recent stability I think will make at least some people more willing to hold.) Are you disagreeing or wondering whether I read this elsewhere or this is my personal speculation? Yes, I am speculating but I think my speculation is about as valid as anyone else' -- all sorts of people say stuff and I am one such person.

relesabe

I agree: as inspiring as grass root efforts are, they are small potatoes and have usually no significant effects. Years ago i got excited thinking how much money people working out in a gym could generate (in aggregate) but a simple thought experiment reveals just how little money that amounts to -- if a gallon of gasoline costs, say, 5 bucks and can move a car 30 miles, then it is clear that someone pedaling a stationary bike even 30 miles which would be say two hours of hard pedaling must generate a small fraction of that since a bike weighs so much less than a car. I am guessing a human would generate something like 1 percent of that five bucks -- like a nickel or less. What is exciting is that Guatemalans are interested in BTC. It can surely benefit them and if these backyard BTC mining operations introduce citizens to BTC and mining, great -- but why re-invent the wheel? I think partnership with El Salvadoran companies, which ES should be very interested in promoting since having a neighbor using BTC has got to benefit ES, is the way to got. No way a bunch of backyard generators will have any practical positive effect (except as mentioned as a way of educating people about BTC) and burning a bunch of used cooking oil could have numerous negative effects. Respiratory health problems I am certain can outstrip in terms of cost any backyard mining set up that uses dirty cooking oil.

247drip

Volatility ≠ unpredictability. In fact, in many ways crypto volatility helps to *minimize* risk, especially for breakout traders. Breakouts can be massive in crypto relative to risk. It’s not uncommon to have 10:1 or better on a crypto setup whereas trading ES or something you’re usually hoping for something closer to 3:1 - 5:1 range. I think a lot of people write crypto off as “untradeable” because they got hit with losses bagholding indefinitely. It’s definitely not something I would ever hold long term with considerable size but for short term trades, it’s arguably the best thing possible to trade.

relesabe

There could be a way, I suggest, with AI or maybe something less fancy: Why could you not simply assure that investors receive some percentage of all BTC mined which eventually goes down? The set up might be so complex technically or just so profitable that attempts at nationalization would be considered too risky vs just abiding by initial agreements with investors. In contrast to nationalization of oil companies which I suspect is very straightforward -- even ISIS is exporting oil -- not a very sophisticated drilling or refining operation but they make a lot from it. Bottom line, via software, I think investors could be made to feel safe about their investment in ES. Historically, revolutionaries have been good at destroying stuff, not so good at creating stuff. I am not saying it would be easy but a lot of consideration should be given to protecting investor money and I suspect BTC is an example of commodity that can be protected whereas gold or oil can easily be stolen from investors. Now, countries do stupid things but I think if a country manages to turn things around enough as I think Bukele has/will, nationalization is unlikely anyhow. But a guarantee based on Smart Contracts or whatever, contracts that may be in force for decades or even centuries, will make me consider investing in ES or any other country that is forward-looking enough to protect my money from theft by the country I was trying to help.

GroundbreakingArt370

Why not look into investing directly into the companies that are expanding their footprint into ES? I know Cory from Swan and Max Keiser hace something brewing over there: elzontecapital.com Assuming they've done their due diligence in terms of navigating some of the nuances you've mentioned above. I'm sure their bizdev team can answer those questions.

relesabe

Here's something you might not think of: At one time, probably almost everyone who had electricity had it for one thing: Electric Lights -- when Edison introduced the first practical household light bulb and laid underground wires, I think most people thought of not getting electrity but getting a superior system for lighting ones house. (If you don't see the advantages of electric lights over open flames, you never had to live without electric lights for an extended period.) Even Edison probably did not foresee the proliferation of other electric-powered appliances -- did not see electric ovens, etc. So this woman getting a trivial amount of BTC is just the very beginning of her journey with BTC -- the most creative financially of ES citizens are starting new businesses that would not have been practical due transaction fees, etc.

slvbtc

I would say ES is the most bitcoin friendly country on earth and the UAE is the second most bitcoin friendly country.

LuckySpaceHorse

But only 20% of businesses in ES even accept BTC. The actual adoption is much lower and probably decreasing: 91% of citizens prefer using USD. You can read the sources if you don't believe me (a random Redditor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_in_El_Salvador All of those statements are separately sourced.

SamWouters

While working on River's new report on Bitcoin Payments & Adoption, I wanted to learn to make one of these race charts for Bitcoin interest. Important to understand it displays \_relative\_ interest, not absolute! I'll quickly explain the difference below. The data is based on Google Trends, but Trends doesn't show the total number of searches (absolute). It divides the total number of searches for a term by all Google searches and then the highest area or timeframe gets a score of 100. Everything else is compared to that. So if El Salvador has a score of 100, and South Africa is at 50, then someone Googling in ES is twice as likely to be searching for Bitcoin. Total search volume gives a very different leaderboard of course. In May 2023 it was the US 🇺🇸 at 1.9M, then Brazil 🇧🇷 at 1.2M, and Turkey 🇹🇷 at 1.1M. These are estimations by Ahrefs.

clue5tick

SWIFT cut off ES? El Salvador has the momentum.

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 --> ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️