Topic: [2021-06-05] El Salvador to make Bitcoin Legal Tender (Read 275 times)

Seems that I already explained my response.  El Salvador has passed a law making bitcoin legal tender, so if you are referring to more amorphous concepts you are not speaking clearly regarding what you are saying.


Don't put words in my mouth.  I was criticizing your assertion about the supposed crack down, and I suggested that your assertion seems like pie in the sky nonsense and not very likely.  Maybe you will be correct, but I doubt that you are describing the situation very accurately and also you are being so damned vague that it remains difficult to determine exactly what you are asserting either to be the purported problem or what you believe to be a likely response.


I am not religious.  I try to consider facts for what they are and attempt to come to reasonable conclusions or to make reasonable speculations based on facts.  Surely somethings are not known so assumptions might be needed in those circumstances.  I doubt that I am biased in any kind of meaningful or substantial way when I attempt to make assessments.


Bitcoin seems to be expanding, so I am not sure about what it is supposedly losing and getting back.

Of course with anything that gets bigger, it may well have a community of people who are more diverse than previously.

I doubt that bitcoin is getting back to anything, because the circumstances that are faced at this time are somewhat new circumstances, and we will see how it plays out.... Seems quite bullish so far in terms of continuing to expand adoption, use cases, and various network effects.

It seems that with our various back and forths, I had already conceded that there could be paths forward in which El Salvador could either repeal the law or somehow reverse itself, but that seems like such nonsense that it is hardly even likely, and even if they were to repeal the law, it is difficult to say if they might not still keep going forward with other bitcoin-friendly posturing...   In other words, it seems way more realistic to be attempting to deal with facts that we know and to speculate about ramifications of facts that we know than to make up shit about what might happen and then speculate about that made up shit rather than dealing with what we already know, first.

I was only talking about the whole cryptospace as a technology, where bitcoin is included as irreversible. I do not know why that triggers you.

Are you quite certain that the United States empire, its allies, the IMF and the BIS will take the new threat lightly?

Are you also quite certain that your religious fanaticism for bitcoin does not muddle your view of bitcoin? #justasking

It sounds good to me also. I have always said that bitcoin has lost its idealism, meaning and its status as a political tool. It has become more of a tool to pump, dump and make cash dollars. This new movement in South America might bring it back again.

We are not talking about cryptocoins or blockchains here.

This is about bitcoin, and surely you realize that the bill that was passed in El Salvador is ONLY about bitcoin.

I am not saying that various scam shitcoins won't be piling on, but the focus of what is going on seems to be about bitcoin and NOT some amorphously broad concept that you are reframing.. which I am not sure if you did that intentionally or maybe you mix the ideas in your head? perhaps?


You do seem to be going quite broad, so if you are saying that there are going to be copycats, then sure.

Some of the copy cats might stay focused on bitcoin, and some of the copy cats might be more broadly focused.  If you are not really specifying, then it is really kind of difficult to know what you are talking about.

First thing if the administration whether Biden or otherwise is concerned or find certain behaviors "unacceptable" , then what are they going to do?  And do they find the behaviors unacceptable within a means that they are ready, willing and able to actually do something in order to attempt to address the parts that that they find unacceptable.  You still have not gotten off of your amorphous non-specificities and your all-over-the-place and ultimately vague conjectures concerning both what it is supposedly unacceptable that is being done and what the supposed corrective behavior is going to be from the USA... .. Sure, the more vague you are, then the more able you are to say "I told you so," but so far you are all over the place in your conjectures and predictions, so almost anything that happens you are going to be able to so say "I told you so." 

I am not sure what good that does.



Finally, an admission that you are getting your ideas from fantasy-landia... Great.. at least we finally have received somewhat of a concession.. but not sure, also, how that helps us... to make progress when you admit that you have one foot in fiction and another foot in real world conjecture attempts.

You might not even understand what is bitcoin.

Do you know what bitcoin is, exactly?  #justasking.


No problem... there will likely be a lot of countries moving somewhat in this direction.

Sounds good to me.

Probably sounds good to any person who has been involved in bitcoin and preaching bullish cases for bitcoin.. kind of like a wet dream come true.. so sure, some people want to poo-poo what seems to be great movements for bitcoin currently and into the future... and so it is your choice if you cannot recognize and appreciate the positive angle from what is currently happening and the contagion that is likely to follow (not guaranteed of course) but seems quite likely to have many more adopters (countries and otherwise) and likely the BIG bully countries are not going to be able to do a-whole-hell-of-a-lot to stifle the bitcoin adoption momentum.. at least not in the short-to-medium term... so better to be going with the flow (momentum) rather than fighting it with fantasy theories that are not very well grounded in reality.

@JayJuanGee. Cryptocoins and blockchains as a technology have certainly become irreversible. I was only talking about the political movement that appears to be beginning in South America and how the Empire under Biden and its allies would find this unacceptable. However, yes, I agree that I may have watched too much movies hehehe.

In any case, it appears Panama wants to join the movement. It is arguable if they know or consider it to be a political movement, however.



Next month, Panamanian congressman Gabriel Silva plans to present a bill that could potentially spearhead the adoption of cryptocurrencies as legal tender and create tax incentives for crypto-related businesses.

After El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, announced he was proposing a law to make bitcoin (BTC, -3.39%) legal tender, Silva tweeted on June 7 that if Panama wanted to become a true hub of technology and entrepreneurship, it should also support cryptocurrencies.

Source https://www.coindesk.com/panama-to-present-crypto-related-bill-in-july

Bitcoin is already pretty damned close to irreversible, and you seem to be suggesting that a course of action is really clear in regards to how the US Govt can handle this particular situation in order to get results that they would want.  Accordingly, you still are hanging on the idea that taking out the President is amongst the best of actions that the USGovt would consider to be helpful in sending a message to the many wannabe or copy cat govts ... but I suppose another less severe way could be that if Bukele just reverses or repeals the law and makes some kind of clear statement denigrating bitcoin.

I really doubt that your premises are solid here, and sure believe what you like in terms of making your predictions regarding which way this matter is likely to go.

I did not say that El Salvador was being confrontational, however, it will be considered a threat by the American government. I have read articles that other members of government from Ecuador and Argentina begun to put laser eyes in their profiles hehehe. Bitcoin acceptance like El Salvador is a political movement whether they intended this or not and bitcoin as a political tool would be something oppressive governments would never want everyone to realize possible. They would try to kill this new type of political movement before it becomes irreversible.

Fair enough, but you still seem to be extrapolating a lot with that theory.

You seem to be suggesting that Bukele needs to be nipped in the bud because it is going to cause a kind of contagion in the region or even a "run on the dollar" and therefore, the USA is going to consider this to be an urgent matter... and they are going to have some way of acting that is going to get them desired results.



I still doubt that the matter is as confrontational as you are making it out to be, but sure, let's see how some of this plays out.  Even though I consider your various theories to be quite outlandish, I am not ruling them out as completely impossible, but they seem to be real BIG ASS stretches that focus on pie in the sky unlikely scenarios rather than more likely scenarios and happenings that I had already described.

Probably you are mentioning them because you truly believe them to be likely scenarios, and in that regard, I suppose that it is good that you have them written down, so that if they happen, then you can proclaim that "I told you so.", but at the same time, from my point of view you seem to be failing/refusing to focus on more likely scenarios and directions that a lot of this declaration of legal tender takes us and then the subsequent preparations that are involved for when the law goes active in September and further developments that go from there.. and likely including that a lot of people are beginning to consider El Salvador as a development location and previously they had not even known that such a place existed.

@JayJuanGee. However, it does not need to be an open proclamation. Do you remember when Saddam Hussein announced that his Iraq will begin to deal in euros instead of the dollar for trading crude oil? United States Army tanks rushed in months after.

It would not be shocking if Bukele was exposed for something very serious found from his past or if he had a relative assassinated or if Bukele himself was accused of rape. We would certainly know it is the work of some agency.

So far, I have not seen Bukele make direct and open challenges like the ones that you are proclaiming, so it seems to me that when there are multiple purposes for any kinds of political decisions, there can be ambiguity regarding whether some course of action is actually a direct challenge to the USD or to America... blah blah blah.

Bukele surely is a leader in this regard, and he has gotten his congress to go along with him, and they have asserted that they perceive problems with the high level of unbanked in the country and they also perceive problems with the high costs of remittances, and of course, it seems that the mining from Volcanos is coming as a kind of natural and soon thereafter after thought but seems like it would fit into various ways to build and expand a kind of bitcoin infrastructure.

Of course, there already are quite a few negative reactions, and Bukele cannot necessarily play dumb in regards to other utility functions of BTC, and surely there are likely to be messages being said in private, too... but we don't know what those messages are.  Do you believe that if the USA (or CIA like you asserted) "took out" Bukele, the direction of the bitcoin initiative would "go away?"   Surely, Bukele does seem to learning about aspects of bitcoin fairly quickly and he seems to be getting the ear and the attention of a quite a few influential people and projects in the bitcoin space, so these matters are not really black and white concerning whether it would be within the interest of the US Government to "take him out."   

This is actually very serious. The Americans have implemented regime change in Latin America for matters that are far less in significance. And here we have a president from an impoverished Latin American nation openly challenging the USD and indirectly proclaiming that cryptocurrency is better than inflation-prone US Dollar. I am really worried about the safety of president Bukele. And this is no laughing matter. The CIA has assassinated dozens of world leaders for standing up to the American hegemony. Patrice Lumumba is a prime example.

The people of a country are not the ones who are in the ouster a leader business. They are powerless and are only manipulated to help certain agencies to topple regimes. The CIA does this. They have been toppling regimes that are not in line with America’s self interests and agenda

Of course, countries have choices.  They could have had a 100 year long rule about recognizing the currencies of other countries, but then they see this new situation that there previous rule would compel them to recognize bitcoin as a currency, but instead of just going with the existing rule, they can do whatever they want to make exceptions and try to describe the situation as "different" or "contrary to the public interest" or assert that El Salvador is part of the criminal cabash or whatever.

At the same time, countries also have limitations in what they can do in terms of the amount of public attention on the matter, so surely they would be taking chances if they create a bitcoin exception and they get a lot of backlash, and I am not even saying that government policies necessarily reflect the will of the people but there could be a bit of a tension , especially the more and more that bitcoin becomes embeded with more financial institutions and even governments, besides El Salvador.

Governments all over the world have already transitioned into various kinds of acceptance and recognition of bitcoin, even if they have not gone so far as either recognizing bitcoin as legal tender or as a currency.. but these recognitions and acceptances seem to be changing little by little, too.

Remember the BIG ass US Fed (US Marshalls) auction of the silk road coins (around 30k coins) in mid 2014... and then there was a follow-up auction of some more coins (maybe 10k or more coins) in late 2014.  Choices about conducting those two auctions had given the US Government some options about whether they would go down the path of auctioning off the coins, holding them or destroying them, and we know what they did.  Even if their choice to auction the coins did not constrain or require them to continue to recognize and accept bitcoin legitimacy, it still could have been recognized (for those willing to see it) that governments were increasingly going down the path of recognizing and accepting and allowing the embedding of bitcoin into various parts of normality.. that has increased and increased and increased through the years (for those willing and able to see it).

There's a topic about that here:  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-as-legal-tender-has-huge-legal-implications-for-bitcoin-in-the-us-5342104

It does seem to have some interesting ramifications on tax if other nations begin to recognise Bitcoin as a currency rather than an asset.  I'm sure many places will quickly change their rules around that, though.

I just started to follow him on twitter, he seems to be in El Salvador promoting Bitcoin.

I have thought of the chances of Bukele being ousted, im sure there is resentment brewing
from the people he replaced and the coruption he is trying to change

---

I cant find any info on this online but somebody over the weekend told me that under
International law whatever currency one particular country uses all other countries have
to recognise it also, but obviously dont necessarily have to use. ?

that's also true. the use of BTC would spread over time without any politicians doing something related to it. now it also attracts the attention of IMF and the US sanction might come too.

this is however securing the win for Bukele's position. he doesn't seem to be like a fidel castro nor maduro so it's still a good face for BTC. still, this is seen like it's not just El Salvador's fight

@aoluain. The toppling of a regime begins. I reckon we need the wisdom of the crowd. There should be a prediction market created for this asking if President Bukele will finish his presidential term or not. Also follow updates from Jack Maller. He might be censored from social media if he continues to be outspoken about developments on bitcoin adoption in El Salvador.

From this article on aljazeera > https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/6/11/is-el-salvadors-bitcoin-embrace-a-cold-shoulder-to-the-us

the U.S are not at all happy with the new presidents decision to remove
supreme court judges for being corrupt. The U.S have been meddling in the
politics of El Salvador and other South American countries for years, I really do
hope their infleuence has waned and that more weak and impoverished countries
can break from the $ and find benefit from BTC.

Some excerpts:

Agreed. I am as skeptical as you, however, the significance of this new law is what you have just told us. It will help spread use of bitcoin then it would open the people’s eyes that they do not need laws to enforce the use of bitcoin and the cryptospace. It will be seen as a revolutionary movement and a type of political tool. This might be very significant.  

Maduro was advocating the state backed petro.  Anyone who believed that a socialist/communist/fascist, statist authoritarian would create a crypto that wasn't under their control was naive to the point of being room temp IQ.  I haven't seen news stating he would be willing to use bitcoin, and won't believe it until I see it. Statists don't want money that is outside their control.

As far as a national currency for El Salvador, that is the last thing they need. Bitcoin is independent so that whenever the statists try to retake power, they won't be able to corrupt it.  Looting politicians need stay out of the business of creating money, many of the problems in the world are caused by corrupt, dishonest politicians (redundant) corrupting money. They like to use their power to steal from one group to buy the votes of another, while looting everyone annually with the annual inflation tax. What ES needs is hard, incorruptible money and they have the option with bitcoin.

Getting a bit off topic, but they granted it status as a legal payment method.  Legal tender is a step further.  You can pay your taxes in legal tender.  As far as I'm aware, you can't do that with Bitcoin in Japan.

see, this is what I mean really

would it surprise anyone if, given the above, a bunch of people who know Nayib Bukele personally say he's a bit of a manipulative prick? Oh here comes Jesus on a motorbike, that's what we need to run this town!

The government of El Salvador could have gone with a government controlled currency,
instead they went with something which essentially is controlled by everyone, they have
done their citizens a favour, thats something commendable and ground breaking.

Things are changing in El Salvador and this BTC move will have an effect on the rest of the world


https://time.com/6046941/el-salvador-nayib-bukele-crisis/

yes, they can topple all of them (and already did throughout the 20^th century)


they can topple the people too, but that's much more expensive (and obvious) than toppling their rival gangsters


so that's why I focus on completely ignoring what the government gangsters are saying. normal people can do it without them, and more effectively

@Carlton Banks. I understand the skepticism, however, El Salvador’s acceptance of bitcoin as a substitute for the dollar might be practical. El Salvador does not have their own currency. It has adopted American dollars as their currency and so they are dependent on the monetary and fiscal policies of America. To slowly break away from this, adopting bitcoin might be easier than issuing their own currency. They might not gain real monetary sovereignty, however, it is much better than only being directly under the influence of America.

What other countries presently uses American dollars as their currency? They should follow El Salvador. This is significant and this might only be the beginning of bitcoin as a political movement. The CIA can topple all those regimes that would adopt bitcoin, however, can they topple all of them?

Also, did Japan accept bitcoin as legal tender already?

Volcano power.

Ha! That one stuck!

maybe this good news after china FUD but i also hear that el savador creating 0 emission to mine bitcoin, energy become hot topic when we say bitcoin since you know elon musk XD. Here is the news : https://www.reuters.com/technology/el-savador-exploring-volcanic-bitcoin-mining-bukele-says-2021-06-09/ Money grow on volcanos

and maybe el savador will be crypto heaven after dubai

I’m so happy about this BTC El Salvador news. In a month every nation in the world will get to see what a mess BTC is lol. Use handcash app & BSV Bitcoin to save time, quality and costs!

I am afraid that the era of Americans overthrowing any Latin American regime that they don't like is over. Recently, it is not turning out well for them. They attempted a regime change in Venezuela, and failed in that. And then again attempted another in Bolivia, and failed miserably there as well. And now I won't be surprised if they turn their attention towards El Salvador. I am more worried about proxy interference. With millions of Salvadorans working in the United States, the Biden regime (if they want), can choke the Salvadoran economy.

apparently, other South American governments are considering just that. The best the US can do is not react, then slowly & quietly launch subtle coups d'etats against them, that would be entirely their style. Making too much noise about it in the media might backfire altogether.

it's kind of amusing timing really, I imagine there are a few US/European billionaires wondering "just when you need a Trump as president, along comes Biden instead". Democrat presidents typically have a difficult job; come up with ways of exploiting the 3rd world without the US public noticing, lol

In fact I'm quite worried regarding the geopolitical implications of such an act since that could be considered like a sort of act of war by the US in case many other LATAM countries would start doing exactly the same. Everthing's politics no matter what and bitcoin's a (geo)political tool.

It is a very significant occurrence and no one is overestimating its significance. For cryptocurrency users, it is like a ground breaking event. For the first time, Bitcoin has gained a status that is equal to the fiat currency. To be honest, I was not expecting Bitcoin to become legal tender anywhere in the next 5 years. This was like a bolt from the blue. Getting the opening is always difficult. But since we have one now, I expect the next phase to be relatively easy. A number of countries are likely to follow El Salvador in making Bitcoin the legal tender.

The significance of such an event should not be overestimated. Venezuelan President Maduro has also tried to boost his country's economy by using bitcoin as a means of payment. They even began to pay pensions to old women in bitcoins. We do not see any particular result yet. Inflation continues to break records there.
First of all, El Salvador needs to think about introducing a national currency in order to raise the economy. Bitcoin can only help if it walks simultaneously with the national currency, which will support all economic calculations.
In any case, this will be another experience of introducing cryptocurrency into government.

I suspect that most El Salvadoreans who already use Bitcoin will continue, and many will continue not to.

There is a risk that by politicizing the issue, the US government will become interested, one way or another. Central America has been heavily manipulated by the US military/intelligence for 100+ years, and their European counterparts (i.e. partners in crime) have no doubt played a role or two also.

If the ES president hadn't made this announcement, the userbase could have grown there without so much fanfare. After all, Bitcoin was doing fine in El Salvador without anyone trying to make their face part of that success.

not a bad description of how politics works: persuade normal people that a picture of a face (with very white teeth) will make their life work out ok.

I suppose its an example of a poor country struggling to progress and looking at Bitcoin
and hoping it can make a difference.

Hopefully for the poorer in El Salvador it will make a difference in some way.

In the grand scheme of things it will have little impact on Bitcoin.

yes



I don't recognize politicians, businessmen or countries as relevant or authoritative determiners of markets, and if bitcoin works the way it was designed, such people/concepts moving their mouths would not have any effect

@Carlton Banks

I'm not sure I understood your message.

Did you want to say that given the size of the country and its economy such news is insignificant?
Why is that?

Even if this is true it is a good start. It shows that it is quite possible and could serve as an example to others. The country could serve as a 'laboratory' for this kind of experimentation. We could see a snowball effect afterward

With all the shit E. Musk has been saying recently, such news isn't bad. (I admit: it has zero results on the Bitcoin's market lol)

SMALL, WEAK GOV PERMITS ANTI-GOV MONEY

yeah, big story

Its a small step from a small country!
Amid all the FUD flying around for the past number of weeks we cannot lose sight
of the fact that there is more good news than bad in relation to Bitcoin, even if
its small!

President of El Salvador Says He’s Submitting Bill to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender

Source