Topic: Bitcoin and the failure of El Salvador (Read 496 times)

Actually the decision had been made was really just too fast which i couldnt really blame out people not to make out those kind of impressions and reactions on making Bitcoin as a legal tender.
It does really need that ample time on making adjustments but it seems the President is really making on point decisions and the rest would really be learned along the way.Its not really a bad
step or initiative but it does really make some things stir up since its not been not that organized.If ever the current President wouldnt be elected on next term then i wont really be surprised
that the next one would really be selling those coins and would really be reverting it back to fiat than on making bitcoin as a legal tender.

The country of El Salvador has been very supportive of Bitcoin for a long time. But the amount of BTC they have invested is surprising. Because if you want to invest in Bitcoin then you must be long You have to invest in time steps. And in a few days if you are considering the unique aspect It is not possible to make BTC during the day. Therefore if you have to invest then you will never face loss if you invest for a long time. So if you invest for a long time the results will be very good and you can get benefits

They haven't, the president is still keeping the bitcoins and chances are he will keep it as long as he is the president, and only if he loses the election then the new one may end up selling. The "failed" part they are talking about is the fact that not everyone is in love with the legal tender idea in El Salvador, which is expected but some maximalists didn't expected that. They wanted their own nation to make it legal tender as well but they saw that people are protesting against bitcoin and that is the risky stuff that we are talking about.

As long as people are protesting, that means it is not 100% fully integrated into the culture just yet, and some see that as failure.

El salvador makes bitcoin legal tander but The reason of failure of El salvador is the falling Cryptocurrency prices. And Bitcoin Price got down by half of it.

If they sell the for fiat at the pump then the value of the fiat that they will get is still high but if they don't spend it immediately or re invest it again then the value of their fiats can decrease over time due to the effects of inflation. This is why it's still important to have bitcoin with us as bitcoins doesn't depreciate in value but it can only grow in value the longer you hodl it.

I like the idea of El Salvador supporting bitcoin and making it as a legal tender but what I only dislike is the approach of people towards this. They are protesting thinking btc can do harm more than good. I think they judge btc too early. Why can't they try and observe it first?

El Salvador legalised Bitcoins, and that seems failure to some people?
I mean how you could even say that? Just because the bear market, it seems to you as failure?
Have you heard the news a month ago, when El Salvador bought 100 Bitcoins in these cheap price? According to me this is very smart move.
They know the potential of the coin and therefore bought it in cheaper price.
For me this not failure, as Btc is taking longer time to move up. This is just a temporary time phase which will eventually pass and Salvador will be glad on his decisions.

It is wrong to call what El Salvador has an "investment" because they didn't buy bitcoin to sell it for profit. In other words even if bitcoin was $1 million today, they still wouldn't be selling what they'd bought.
The plan was to attract investments from others, obviously the government had to have some bitcoins of their own then attract foreign investors which is exactly whey they had such massive projects like that bitcoin city thing. An obvious tourist and foreign investor attraction, specially due to very low cost of living there.

the government of el salvador does not need to buy a lot of bitcoin and force its people to buy bitcoin to say that they are in mass adoption, I believe that what the government of el salvador could do would be the following:

1 - pass a law that allows all people from el salvador to buy bitcoin, receive salaries in bitcoin, pay bills and tax with bitcoin

2 - pass laws that allow people to deduct a portion of their bitcoin for pension and life and health insurance

3 - pass a law that allows all people from el salvador to make payments and accept bitcoin payments

these laws would already guarantee mass adoption, the government would not need to be spending people's money and buying bitcoin to be showing off on social media

No one is helped by that except the Bitcoin holder himself whose price is already greater than what he has ever bought in the market.

Not only me, but everyone else will also not know until they have to hold the Bitcoins they have for profit. So it's true that it's not forever in the long term, but when the price of Bitcoin decreases and becomes cheap in the market, Bitcoin almost very often takes a little longer to rise again to a higher price so the analogy for the long term is always more suitable though it is not known when the auspicious date will occur for sure.

I also don't like any accusation if it's not based on clear evidence against it (El Salvador). But for me what El Salvador is doing is something that can influence other countries to take Bitcoin more seriously even though El Salvador is still experiencing losses at the moment because Bitcoin has not increased as much as El Salvador wanted.
But if El Salvador can survive the difficulties they are currently facing, then there is a possibility for El Salvador to succeed through their investment or through the adoption of Bitcoin that they have done.

People saying that El Salvador has failed in their bitcoin adoption, it a depends on what their definition of failure is. As an individual, if I bought bitcoin when it was at $50k and hold till now, am I going to be called a failure? Definitely no, I could rather be called a strong hand or a die hard hodler.
Why is the case of a nation different?
I will only consider that El Salvador bitcoin agenda or adoption has failed when the country makes a public announcement that they have sold all their bitcoin. If they do so at bear, I will say they failed, but I am not certain if I will also say so when they sell on profit.

Apart from the financial profit which hasn't come yet, but which will inevitably come, El Salvador has gotten some kind of exposure in the world, they have become a country for tourists. I read somewhere in the forum that about 40+ countries would converge in El Salvador for a bitcoin conference. These are goodnews that bitcoin brought to the country. So El Salvador hasn't failed yet and their is a very little odd that they will fail.

^ Definitely right.
I don't think there is a failure, El Salvador still owns their BTC, they even not selling it because they are afraid of further loss. Which is I think the president of that country probably knows to sell BTC and how potential is waiting ahead when the price becomes reached the new ATH.
There is no failure to me, instead, it is the start the country will benefit from the crypto market soon.

I also think like you. Even if we as retail investors can see bitcoin volatility as inevitable, there's no reason why a president and a team of advisers behind him shouldn't see it. This is not the first time bitcoin slump met, it has happened many times in the past so I am sure they are prepared for situations like this before deciding to invest in bitcoin.

As @kryptqnick mentioned, they only invest a small amount of government budget in bitcoin and even if bitcoin falls further it won't affect their economy too much.

I've never once thought that El Salvador's move to adopt bitcoin will be unsuccessful. A very capable leader, Nayib Bukele has a bright future for his nation. He won't fail at this, in my opinion. I'm sure he foresaw the market's volatility before deciding to invest in bitcoin and is aware of how unstable it may be. If he hadn't been so determined, he would have sold all of his bitcoins when the market started to decline instead of buying more so he could benefit later. They will be among the richest nations and have plenty in their reserves if they can continue to stay up with the market. No matter how long it takes to reap the rewards, he is aware that 1BTC = 1BTC always.

That's all I'm just waiting and that's going to be an inevitable situation for most. The bull run is going to be there again as much as they're critics during the bear market.
They're all just watching out when everyone is down with their portfolios but let's see how it's going to be when everyone is at gain or when the ones they're critical about is showing perfect gains when we're all in bullish market.

Those who say fail certainly do not understand how bitcoin works. if bitcoin is fully adopted of course bitcoin is still bitcoin, not based on value in fiat. El Salvador is a bolder country than any other country, even El Salvador, led by Nayib Bukele, will make Bitcoin City and become the center of bitcoin usage. this is even a great future bitcoin plan. El Salvador is one step ahead of any other country. Failure is only for those who don't believe in bitcoin and this adoption is still new and needs time for better development.

I don't agree if you say bitcoin and the failure of El Salvador, SE as if you claim that El Salvador failed to manage bitcoin and make bitcoin a legal currency in their country, for now bitcoin is in decline but we need to emphasize to all people falling in price is not a failure of El Salvador in adopting bitcoin, because in my personal opinion as long as bitcoin is still an investment and is still accepted by all people, it is not a failure it is just a price drop and one day the price of bitcoin will definitely go up again.

You just said the real fact regarding El-Savador which many failed to understand, in a country you can't expect to have a large number of people and be in a leadership position without having challenges from them because even the more you do in giving out to serve the people the more they begin to say negative things about your deeds, El-Savador knows what it's doing right now and its steps where not just an ordinary ones, it's well backed up with convictions and it holding capacity is not yet a thing of doubt or failure, that's what is meant to invest and take the risk forgetting about what others are saying.

I agree with the op that we shouldn't call the case of El Salvador a failure. The price is down, but they luckily didn't invest a big amount of the government's funds into it (in terms of percentage from the total), so it's not catastrophic. Also, I am sure the price will be up again. As for adoption of Bitcoin as money, I've also seen reports that Bitcoin isn't particularly popular in El Salvador, even though it's legal tender, and that many just used their wallets once, to get the initial $30 worth of BTC. There's still time, and things can change. As long as Bitcoin adoption doesn't lead to major adverse effects, there's no reason not to adopt it.

Not any failure when El Savador adopting bitcoin as legal currency transaction because as bitcoin investor or trader got their dreaming come true have country want to make bitcoin for legal currency transaction. How ever when El Savador announced bitcoin as legal currency transaction make bitcoin touched all time high price.

Could be different viewed and bitcoin price without announced by El Savadaor for legal currency transaction and bitcoin can't make new all time high price, although with nowadays bitcoin have drop drastically from all time high price always have chance for bitcoin back to higher price. El  Savador still have new thing how to make bitcoin back to higher price again for few months later.

Many people think that way, but they never want to learn to understand. Indeed, so far Bitcoin is still restricted, even the IMF and the World Bank have banned it. But there is something special about Bitcoin that is difficult to explain and they don't understand.
Currently as a crypto trader I strongly support El Salvador using Bitcoin. Every country has the right to make its decisions. Although they got the consequences of the decision, they were prepared. That's a risk, but in the end if Elsalvador succeeds it will be a pilot project for other countries. I'm sure.

I live in a country where bitcoin is banned and not legal yet, so I really admire countries that accept bitcoin and especially El Salvador that made bitcoin the first legal tender. I wish that one day my country or many countries around the world can follow El Salvador to bring bitcoin into mass adoption.

I am a supporter of El Salvador, I am quite annoyed that many people are laughing at El Salvador. Those people are even investing in bitcoin, they mock El Salvador as a terrible failure, but they don't know themselves they couldn't get better.

when people sell their BTC to fiat currency then it will become a separate value it can be high or decrease in value, but actually what they don't realize is 1 BTC is 1 BTC and never changes, there is no need to determine a price value of 1 BTC with currency fiat money then it might be a panic in itself when the market is bear like this, so I don't think el salvador will fail they will benefit from holding their bitcoins, just need to wait 1 or 3 years from now

El Salvador hasn't failed. You seem to be supporting bitcoin, but why did you have to set the title of this thread like that? You make it sound like bitcoin and El Salvador, both has failed. You are only spreading FUDs through your clickbait title.

I haven't kept myself updated with El Salvador, but as far as I know, they haven't sold any bitcoins yet. So they haven't lost anything. You are only going to lose if you are going to sell your coins!

I think el-salvador has its own strategy and they know how to make a proper action on this bear market, they are smart and has a plan to buy when bear season so i think they are buying or holding, just remember that we will only loss if we sell at loss if bitcoin fall into 1$ per coin then we will not sell our holding we still not in loss because time will come that the price will back to bullish again and holders always earn in crypto.

Ah, I remember seeing these pics on Twitter. It seems like the protest only seemed to consist a really small number of (misinformed) people though. Probably the very small subset of people that doesn't read and that makes everything a conspiracy theory.

well yea now in hindsight after the events of last year people in el salvador knew that fiat was still used..

but...
check the news of last year(before/at the time) .. there were PROTESTS
so, read why they protested(not after the adoption, but before/at). they were protesting against bitcoin because they thought crypto was a compulsory REPLACEMENT legal tender not a second option extra legal tender. they were initially calling the president an authoritarian for implementing a change of legal tender which was unconstitutional.

translate: "wake up el salvador no to the dictatorship no to the reforms"
"total rejection of bitcoin

they feared not being able to continue using fiat
(once it was legal tender they realised they still used fiat.. where there then became other issues people experienced)


translate: "The Bitcoin bill must be repealed, it will bring more corruption and poverty"

within days of then using it. one protest reason stopped. and then the next one started.
it escalated to other things about the exchange rate losses as the international price of bitcoin dropped from $50k to $40k. also the problems with using the wallet where the bottlenecks were happening.
where they were saying the wallet was not fit for retail and couldnt cope with buying most popular stuff. etc etc

El Salvador accepting Bitcoin as legal tender isn't a failure, talking about price is the main reason of failure is a baseless opinion.

When Bitcoin become legal tender, it's mean it's used as a currency for daily spending. Not like other countries which accept Bitcoin as an underlying asset that mainly for investment or trading. El Salvador never failure to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, even the price decrease for 95% it can't be said as failure. It's failure when there's no citizens on El Salvador didn't ever use Bitcoin!

This is a flawed narrative! Unless and until we value bitcoin using a fiat currency, bitcoin is not going to be adopted by the mass. Bitcoin has not yet reached to a position where we can value goods and services in bitcoin's unit. So when the value of bitcoin is going down, El-Salvadorians can't cheer about its investment into bitcoin.

It's just one year El-Salvador had adopted bitcoin. So it's too early to conclude if they have failed or not. When bitcoin will reach 100,000, I will revisit such arguments.

Yes, it is true, as long as there is no selling, there is no loss because Bitcoin remains the same. Whoever sold at the current price is the loser. As for El Salvador, they are still clinging to the dream they started. Temporary loss does not mean loss at all. The results must be looked at in the long run, then it can be judged whether the experiment failed or No, we all wish El Salvador success in its bold step.

1 year is so short for HODLERs, bitcoin has been around for 13 years and it hasn't reached mass adoption anywhere so we shouldn't expect it to reach mass adoption in el Salvador just because it is legal tender there.

The fact that there is critical thinking against bitcoin in its development in el salvador does not indicate being against the project and everything that is being developed in El Salvador, but without a doubt the data by which this project should be measured cannot be hidden. These results, in fact, and celebrate such a date should not be points of conflict.

That bitcoin has finally become legal currency is a fact that we still believed was far away, and it is happening, and that fulfilled idea is already beginning to gain experience, although it is a pity that it cannot be strengthened in this mandate of Bukele, who in reality He is the one who drives it and maintains it.

I find no reason why El Salvador is said to have failed for their bitcoin adoption. El Salvador managed to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender and as a currency, it was a success not a failure. If you think that El Salvador is failing its bitcoin adoption, then I think that's the wrong decision to think about.

El Salvador has provided a good choice for every citizen about financial freedom especially regarding the payment system. Almost every citizen has a bank in his own hands to spend his bitcoins at any time, it was the greatest success for El Salvador to get out of the centralized financial system. We don't judge a failure just because their investment is now lost due to a drop in the bitcoin price, it's something that has nothing to do with their successful adoption. If their investment loses today, it doesn't mean that adoption is also failing and vice versa, if their investment is successful in the future it doesn't mean all citizens will adopt bitcoin. Two things should be assessed differently, investment and adoption.

When faced market with bearish I think many people claimed the failure and mistake made by El Savador after one years made bitcoin as legal currency transaction, will have different opinion when bitcoin and market on bullish condition all people minds said El Savador become most important country after bitcoin become legal currency transaction. Ever when first time El Savador announce about bitcoin as legal currency transaction success made new all time high although later bitcoin price drop drastically. All human attitude when getting profit from bitcoin investing they will silent, then talk more and looking fault when faced with bitcoin price drop drastically. Who ever countries want to make bitcoin as legal currency transaction or not need to make our research before investing in bitcoin and know the right time have to buy or sell.

How sure are you with both of these? You'd think someone that's actually from El Salvador knows that BTC was only an alternative, due to the fact that most people still pay with fiat money.

El Salvador's problem is not with Bitcoin or their adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. Thats just the symptoms of their real problem, which is crappy PR for Bitcoin. They at first were able to generate a lot of hype and a lot of excitement. And then? Then nothing. They completely failed when it came to marketing Bitcoin to their own people as well as to the world. They just hoped the hype would continue on its own and somehow Bitcoin would gain value and the people in El Salvador who held Bitcoin would be so grateful for their profits they would spread the adoption of Bitcoin even more. The president of El Salvador counted on that and did not take into account the fact that his people are mostly poor and would rather cash out without hodling so they could pay for stuff they really needed.

But this Pr problem is very fixable. Lets see what El Salvador has to show us.

here is the jist of things. wrote calmly without BS. without embellishments or exaggerations about how things actually went

elsalvadors first attempt into crypto didnt go well last year(sept-jan) because they didnt enter the crypto realm via bitcoin as bitcoin using the bitcoin network

they entered via a bridged sub network with pegged value for transfers(LN) which has known bottlenecks and liquidity issues and a peg that has no consensus security, that could not support 50k(<1%) citizens let alone 6 million people(el salv pop).

they learned this within a couple months. and shifted away from that subnetwork that was being used as the backbone transfer of their wallet system, and moved more to a CEX custodial service to do internal swaps and then actual bitcoin/fiat withdrawals to avoid the locks/liquidity and bottlenecks and peg issues

their other issue was when promoting a new legal tender many citizens thought it was about stopping the utility of fiat in the area to be 100% crypto. which many citizens thought was an impedance to finance not a new extra option/freedom

again those first few months were hit with resistance due to bad promotions where people thought they were being forced to only use crypto in a manner that was not actually the true crypto they were mentioning.

the last kick in the leg that hindered movement last year was the calling it a "bitcoin" project even though the wallet and its backbone network was not the bitcoin network. so again they felt lied to or misinformed

all these 3 things stirred into a unsuccessful adoption due to payment problems and misinformation about what they were actually using, able to use and had access to.
...

this year they are trying it a different way. and progress is more organised, timely and positive. yes this year may be different than last years first couple months. but they are now actually trying to concentrate on bitcoin and not the other subnet that caused them problems

it will take time. but already in 1 year they have more citizens using crypto in the area(120k+(~2% pop (its more but i wont embellish))),  which is more than say the whole of bitcoin had gained in 2010(its first year)
so its progress. just slow

It’s a work in progress, and although I don’t favour the term failure to summarize the year, it’s likely pretty shy from the expectancies that were deposited on the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender there.

From the perspective of bitcoin it’s certainly been a success so far, enhancing bitcoin with a real life case use of adoption as legal tender. That alone gives food for thought to many other countries which had never even considered there being an option outside their status-quo. Whether that moves on for any more of them eventually, is yet to be seem, but it’s on some of their radars. It’s also put El Salvador on the radar, which should do them some good.

The country itself has not (allegedly) sold any of the government held bitcoins, so they are not at a realized loss, but obviously the hopes were set in a completely different direction. Not having a realized loss does not mean that there aren’t at a loss in bookkeeping terms.
Out of the top of my mind, I recall they created a Trust for the Chivo System with around 150M $, to provide liquidity to the overall system. Bukele’s Bitcoin purchases allegedly come from that Trust (though there is a lack of transparency as to where the funds for each purchase came from), so on the paper, the Trust does have a diminished current value in USD. The Chivo Pet Hospital (and some schools) were paid with alleged bookkeeping surpluses (yet no realized) due to BTC raise during the first months. A bit of one-way magic there.

But I wouldn’t just stop considering government based BTC purchases. After all, they’ve likely got a way better position to hold and not realize the losses that the segment I’d be more concerned with, which is the general population. It’s not really that trivial to play along with the Hodl mantra for them, and lacking any real data, I can only guess that quite a few have sold at a loss, or at least refrained from saving in bitcoins due to its descending value trend. The reported abundant failures with the Chivo Wallet, the default bitcoin wallet the people there will use, constitutes additional unwanted hassle and reputation loss to the Chivo System.

In addition, remittances through bitcoins are rated currently by the government at just under 2%, which is low for what was one of the key arguments in favour of its usage in the country.

One year is not that much though, and the current conjuncture of multiple macro aspects has not helped at all in getting the local population’s mind-set more into bitcoin usage (and savings). I would have like to see a year of rolling on wheels, but instead we got one full of bolsters in the path.

The timing is just really bad. If I remember correctly, the announcements happened when BTC was around like $30k-$40k; so after BTC rose then dropped, negative press was to be expected regardless how much usage BTC is getting in El Salvador.

Funnily enough, people are trashing on Bitcoin and El Salvador as if BTC is their only payment option.

This is always true but does it help your or any entity if you can not hold your Bitcoin long enough to get profit?

You don't know how long you will have to hold it to the profitable date so don't bet. El Salvador President bet that Bitcoin will rise in near future and his country is in serious debt crisis. This is his mistake and collapse can occur if his country has to sell all Bitcoin to get cash for paying debt interest or other reasons.

However I disagree to anyone accuse El Salvador. They just made a history for Bitcoin and the world and we should appreciate that. Especially if the argument or accusation is from people (I don't say it is you) who got profit with the bull run of Bitcoin that is partially contributed by El Salvador legal tender news. They should say thank you to the President and El Salvadorians.

Over the years such developments come in the bull,just to keep the momentum but I always think the bear is more appropriate for such adoption where they can pick up bitcoin at cheap price and store. I also think those countries also need to have their stable coin, maybe with backup from by dollar made as profit from the bull and stored bitcoin. A volatile coin at the moment does not make provision of other assets although it make better return on investment than others. 

I don't know why people like to rush into making conclusion on something not yet due for it, El-Savador decision is much enviable by many countries because they lack any fortitude to take such a decision as well, so on a reality base we all have high tendencies of being jealous of what we don't have or do against those having or doing it, very soon it will be a thing of shame on all those castigating El-Savador's decision and blame themselves for not taking a follow, all I've been seing about El-Savador's bitcoin adoption are goodnews all over with satisfaction on taking such decision so I don't know where the haters are coming from and why the attacks, but as to El-Savador, i wish her very best of it all in good wish.

They celebrated the one year yesterday. We should not be thinking about how bitcoin price has falled, bitcoin adoption helped El Salvadorans. It helps in tourism and remittance. Over 70% of Salvadorans are not having bank account, but now people from abroad can easily send money to their relatives and other people with the use of bitcoin. Out of 100% of bitcoin received as salary, remittance and the likes, over 90% are converted to USD. Bitcoin helps in El Salvador.

It's always more appropriate to give them (El Salvador) time because jumping to conclusions too quickly won't be as effective as a complete conclusion. So giving El Salvador time in terms of proving themselves not to fail and still being able to rise when market conditions are not good is a very hard work for El Salvador.

Yeah, 1BTC = 1BTC whose amount will never change if it's not sold or used for other things. Because what has changed now is the price of BTC itself in the market so some people start making hasty conclusions by saying Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador has failed and they think El Salvador has suffered losses regardless of how far the Salvadoran government tries to stay afloat and continue to build his coveted Bitcoin city.

For me this is a piece of aphorisms that must be remembered so as not to panic suddenly.

Bitcoin lovers do have to support Bitcoin adoption efforts in El Salvador because when the adoption by El Salvador succeeds one day, of course the good effects for Bitcoin will also be there and one of them is like you said where there will be encouragement and desire for other countries to try to adopt Bitcoin as El Salvador did.

Yes, and I think the government of El Salvador has taken this into account already. So when we are in bearish state, they continue to accumulate as much as they can.

So let's see what their critiques will say when we goes into another bull run in 2024-2025. Perhaps they will hide again just like the rest of the anti-bitcoiners who went into hibernation when the market is rallying and come out of the rock when the bearish trend enters.

We should take it like this when the market is bullish and we've been on that for so long. These critics will tell that El Salvador did a genius idea and decision.
But when the market is bearish, we'll hear them say that El Salvador did a foolish thing of investing in bitcoin and now they're dropping in losses and only looking at that certain point. It's the same to us when somebody mocks us when our investments are falling due to the drop that we're having in the market. These people are only waiting for our failures but when we're on our peak of having profits, they're silent.

It's been a year since ElSalvador took the bold step of becoming the first country in the world to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender. The market is going through bad days so a lot of people think that ElSalvador failed, defaulted when accepting Bitcoin... but I think they were too hasty in judging someone. We all know Bitcoin is a long term investment measured in years, so to know if someone will fail or succeed in investing in Bitcoin give them a few years time.

There's no denying that ElSalvador's investment is losing money, but that's when you're talking USD value, not Bitcoin. ElSalvador bought a total of 2,381 BTC and their Bitcoins remained unchanged.

We always tell each other that 1BTC = 1BTC,
if you don't sell, you won't lose, why rush to conclude that they failed, when they haven't sold any Bitcoins yet?
It can be said that this country has never given up, they are still on the way to building their "Bitcoin City"❤.
ElSalvador has been trying to make Bitcoin mass adoption and we, Bitcoiners, instead of denigrating or laughing at them, we should wish them success one day. Once they succeed, they will be a big impetus for other countries to move towards mass Bitcoin adoption.


Congratulations once again #BitcoinDayAtElSalvador.