I get your point Charles-Tim that when BTC prices get back into upward momentum, then a whole hell of a lot of normies are going to end up getting convinced through a kind of osmosis (or would it me a kind of inevitable appreciation regarding how the world happens to be changing) that bitcoin happens to be the soundest of monies/assets that the world has seen up to date... so in that sense there is a kind of likely inevitability that value is going to continue to flow into bitcoin - just like it already has been flowing into bitcoin in the past 10-12 years based on greater and greater recognition that not only is bitcoin the soundest of assets/monies but that it is sufficiently backed by technology and even the ongoing growth (support) of network effects to be able to ongoingly continue to inspire more and more folks (institutions and governments too) to allocate more of their value into bitcoin.
What I am trying to say is that genuine people are likely ongoingly going to recognize the value of bitcoin, yet I question the extent to which TelolettOm is actually trying to understand/appreciate bitcoin rather than spouting out some fear-based(fear-spreading) talking points to denigrate bitcoin. Sure, some of the seemingly disingenuine persons will be coming around to bitcoin, too.. maybe reluctantly 5-10 years from now, rather than within a sooner timeline.. that is to the extent that they actually might be ready, willing or able to try to understand the nonsense of their own ill-informed bitcoin bashing talking points.
Surely it is a mistake if they are still holding all their purchasing BTC till now. And I'm starting to doubt El Salvador's ability in crypto investment. I mean, they must know if are heading to the bearish market, where the price of Bitcoin will freefall. It is suicide if they continue to purchase, then they keep the Bitcoin for a long holding. But I'm still trying to trust the El Salvador government, they must be not so dumb as to manage BTC investment carelessly. They should have a reason to continue buying although most people think it isn't the right time to buy.
So their more interested in the quantity of Bitcoin which is what the El Salvador Bitcoin law is calculated on and not on its US dollar values. So don't use Bitcoin price to judge El Salvador's performance in terms of development as Bitcoin price is always volatile.
I have doubts about whether outlining El Salvador's motivations to be directed towards currency rather than investment is either helpful or accurate. DdmrDdmr, Doan9269 and _act_ seem to have been saying something similar above1, above2 and above3 in terms of "why not both?"
Sure, we know and can appreciate currency aspects of bitcoin - especially when we consider various ways that bitcoin can be fairly easily and cheaply transmitted through lightning network vehicles, nonetheless, Bukele seems to have gotten pretty smart about bitcoin pretty quickly and has publicly shown that he has decent understandings of various value propositions of bitcoin that likely goes beyond pigeon-holing bitcoin in a currency versus investment dichotomy.
I don't really disagree with your overall points Odusko, but your framework may well be a bit misleading because we already know that bitcoin can serve in a variety of roles in terms of currency, asset, software, ledger and perhaps other ways of framing the matter - while at the same time, Bukele does not seem to be limiting his own way of thinking or talking about current or future bitcoin contributions to his country or to the world.
I only viewed this from the investment side. In my humble opinion, it is not a wise decision if they buy at the wrong time. They can wait for buying at the dip, not hurry to buy in every drop of BTC price. They must know BTC price history and they should know when the best time to buy.
But I don't care whether El Salvador wants to keep it for investment or payment tool, they know what the best for them. I only share my opinion based on my own assumption.
You cannot presume to know which way the BTC price is going to go in the short to medium term, and I doubt that Bukele's approach to bitcoin (in terms of leading El Salvador's BTC purchases) were intended to be buying high, so his own conduct in terms of investing into bitcoin on behalf of El Salvador seemed to have been preparations for BTC prices to go up, and so the fact that they went down does not necessarily mean that he did the wrong thing or that he could have done it better - so there are a bit of a Monday morning quarter-backing deficiencies angle in your own assessment of the situation, TelolettOm - as if you have superior knowledge about how to balance various interests whether financial or even representational matters.
I will concede that the level of some of Bukele's public statements regarding what he was doing and his various intentions in regards to bitcoin likely had some negative consequences, though it is not even easy to know whether the positives might not have outweighed the negatives in that direction, and leaders of countries have discretion regarding how they choose to publicize some aspects of their representational behaviors/actions.
Yeap, remembers me to a friend with very week hands. Before Corona he bought Bitcon at about $11k. While Corona crash he sold at $4.6k even though I advised him to wait because I was convinced it will rise again. He did not hear and sold. After the crash and the fast rise of Bitcoin price he bought in again, very late at $48k. He told me yesterday that he sold again at $31k I have never sold, not during Corona, nor do I now.
Yeah.. it is so crazy that quite a few people engage in this kind of behavior.. which kind of goes to show how difficult that it can be to really attempt to get ahead of the BTC price and stay ahead of the BTC price.
One of the ways to have decent chances of getting ahead of the BTC price is to have at least a 4-10 year investment time horizon, and of course, DCA (dollar cost average investing) seems to help in the matter too. There are some controversies about whether DCA works better or lump sum investing, and surely folks with lump sums to invest have those kinds of options; however, the vast majority of normies do not have much if any lump sums that they can invest, so in that regard, DCA does seem to serve as the more practical approach for the vast majority of folks (whether normies or not... hahahahaha)..
One thing that I will mention about DCA investing is that a decent number of people fail/refuse to have sufficient foresight to appreciate that if they are continuing to invest into something like BTC, then there investment injections are spread out and it almost inevitably causes their timeline to increase way beyond the point in which they started to invest - so really in bitcoin 4-10 year time horizons should also apply to those amounts invested at later dates - and surely one of the ways to attempt to lock in the time horizon is to attempt a certain amount of frontloading of the investment to attempt to invest aggressively in the beginning to the extent feasible - and hopefully without investing so much in the beginning that it ends up causing panic at later dates if the BTC price falls... and so another part of any DCA investing strategy ends up attempting to calculating reasonable amounts that are sufficiently aggressive to allow for the ability to feel meaningful benefits in the event of future BTC price appreciation.. but not so aggressive that there are temptations to be dipping into the BTC fund because short-term expenses and an emergency fund has not been adequately accounted for. I am not even saying that these balances are easy, but they are things that the vast majority of people (including normies) should be able to learn with a bit of application and practice.