Topic: El Salvador started BTC campaign in their country (Read 475 times)

elsalvador is the first country he started early in seizing this opportunity, so of course in the future he will benefit. just imagine if every citizen has bitcoin, and in the end bitcoin soars, then prosperity is inevitable. and after that usually other countries will imitate it. therefore it is good news to invest in bitcoin

Government of EI Salvador already declared that every adults citizen can get $30 worth of Bitcoin of they download a Bitcoin wallet that is support by EI Salvador governments. I think good sign of Bitcoin acceptance.

It is obvious he is thinking long term, just as bitcoin has a first-mover advantage he is trying to get the same for his country and I do not see anything wrong with this, if anything since he is the president he is in fact mandated to take the best decisions he can for his citizens and I think he is doing exactly that.

Bitcoin related businesses will see this and will decide to move to El Salvador bringing with them a lot of money to the country, the only thing missing is that the president declares that El Salvador will begin to buy bitcoin as a reserve currency for this to become a dream come true.

for the common people this step from El salvador is something very good, but at the same time it is something very bad for the scammers and some people who own exchanges and wallets and other sites related to cryptocurrencies because I think exchanges, wallets and processors of payments, online casinos will have to be licensed and assume some terms and conditions imposed by the government of El Salvador and in this process I doubt that the owners of things related to cryptomeadas will handle the whole process with their anonymous names. for example: I think exchange owners will have to give documents in El salvador to have the license and of course they will have to show real names

Wow I didn't know that was the number but it kinda makes sense with the 35$ and their population, probably not all of their people are gonna received the 35$ but its sure is a big amount of bitcoin to giveaway.

I think this is a good move for the country, but one problem I can see here is if bitcoin has a high fee of course most people will not use it for sure because it just not gonna make sense and if your practical your going to use the currency that is more reliable so probably their fiat currency.

But I guess this campaign will be a lot of help since they could now start, and when that happened maybe they were also going to see the beauty of how bitcoin works and its profit.

The country has been making everything happen in a short time period. Earlier there is no news about El Salvador and something relative to cryptocurrency. All of the sudden months back talks came about the adoption. Now they are with plans of turning the country to be the centre for fintech. Now the campaign to promote usage of bitcoin with the few dollars of free money to give a try is really a best way for adoption and to make people get used to it.

They still have to.

But getting a license, it won't be too hard anymore with their government since it's the main reason why they've adopted bitcoin as a legal tender.

To attract businesses like exchanges to operate into their jurisdiction.

That's the thing: if it's "limited" money, I would want to get rid of it. But if it's "normal" money that I can use however I please, I'd treat it like normal money. Too bad it takes them so long to get their wallet working, I'm very eager to see what's going to happen.
Sending a small amount of Bitcoin to a normal on-chain wallet sounds terrible for fees though, and if a few million people are going to do that in a small amount of times, fees might go up a lot.

I assume Chivo is custodial, so there's a "restore" option if people lose it. If this many people would suddenly have to be their own bank, they're going to need the time until September to educate them on wallet backups.

As far as I can read into it, the idea is to avoid people making a quick cash-out in USD, so the app makes these airdropped 30$ in BTC non-convertible to USD, within the scope of the functionality provided by Chivo. One could, as you say, send it to another wallet and do whatever he wishes from there on.

I figure the ruling hypothesis is that most people will stick to using Chivo, at least for a while, and incentivating them to use these 30$ of BTC (as opposed to cashing it out), even if it by sending it to another wallet, getting the BTC ball into circulation. The expectancy nevertheless, I figure, is that people get to use it in some sort of everyday life commercial TX.

It sounded really good until I reached point 8:

But if you can send it to another wallet, isn't that the same as spending it?

Point 8 makes it feel like it's some sort of gift certificate. I always try to get rid of those, because it limits my flexibility. If I'd get $30 in Bitcoin, I'm okay with that. But if it's "Bitcoin" with certain limitations, I'd rather get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Bukele has been Tweeting on some misinformation regarding the bitcoin law, so far having stated the following comments (which I’ve translated from here: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1409584377915269120):

1. The Government wallet is only one of many that can be used.

2. @chivowallet will be totally compatible with other wallets.

3. Personal data required by the wallet (Chivo I presume) are already in the Government’s possession. The DUI (Id card) has the photo, complete name, age, address, telephone, height, fingerprints, etc.

4. The use of @chivowallet will have no cost, no commissions will apply when sending or receiving remittances, nor when converting bitcoin to dollar or vice-versa.

Businesses (shops and such) will not be charged a commission, as credit cards do.

5. The money that one has or receives (in dollars or bitcoins) in the @chivowallet may be withdrawn in cash (in dollars) whenever one wishes to.

This may be done in the physical Chivo branches, or using Chivo ATMs.

This will not incur in any commission.

6. There will be over 200 Chivo places (counting both ATMs and branches) in historical centres and commercial centres, where one will be able to withdraw cash from the @chivowallet.

One will also be able to make deposits there, purchase #bitcoin, and use other services.
All this without any commission.

7. Conversion between dollars and #bitcoin, or from #bitcoin to dollars is free, and can be done at any time from the @chivowallet, at market price at that point in time.

This is also without any commission.

It is not mandatory to make any conversion if one does not wish to do so.

8. The only #bitcoins that cannot be converted are the 30$ in bitcoin that the government will give out.
These may only be spent.

Why?
Because the purpose of these 30$ in #bitcoin is not to give away money, but rather to incentivize the use of bitcoin and the @chivowallet.

9. Once these 30$ in #bitcoin are spent, they’ll enter the normal system and from there on may be kept in #bitcoin, converted to dollars, and/or be withdrawn from any Chivo point (of interaction), which will be distributed all over our country.

The above does still requires the use of Chivo in order to receive the 30$ in bitcoin, but some clarifications were made to debunk some wrong information that stated to circulate in the country. Clarification number 8 is an interesting one , plus those that verse and reiterate on the lack of some comissions, which we'd still need to see alongside the countervalues being used during conversions and cashouts.

Edit: Pretty long video (1h in Spanish) on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYXTuWcltBs

Well, that a big social experiment over the whole country has begun and it is unclear how it will end. I think we should be patient and stock up on popcorn, as the spectacle and events will be (I'm sure) very interesting. It is especially interesting what will happen if this whole venture turns out to be effective and generates a wave of similar decisions in Latin America - what will happen then to the dollars and the system of finance that exists? I am sure this will be the beginning of a large-scale crisis.

I am surprised that the Salvadoran government is forcing adoption in the way that they are (all merchants have to accept bitcoin as well as the USD). There will be hurdles of forcing this kind of adoption but it will bring BTC adoption to millions of people who wouldn't otherwise get into the space.

Fractional Bitcoin Now combine that with this:

And for the Bitcoin whales who thought this will be a good destination to spend their Bitcoins or even move to:

And a last bit of advice:
I'll stay away for now.

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On second thought: They may actually get away with fractional Bitcoin. If the government tells them it has value, it could just work within the country. That's how we went from gold to paper to digits on a screen over the centuries, and it could just work here too. It won't be Bitcoin, but they can still accept it as a payment.

From rhe information provided here of the need for a KYC and then, a government managed wallet in this case,

In the Open;
It is a deliberate effort but the government to ensure the giveaway isn't over utilised or should i say, the citizens especially those in charge of the giveaway doesn't cheat the system. It would help them keep a close check on the fact that, each citizen gets his or her quota once and for all.

In the Hidden;
It could be another way to ensuring that the bitcoin owned by any citizen that uses the Chivo wallet is taxed. Either receiving or sending.
Again, it could be a campaign  in progress for a re-election into office. Politics never ceases.

Haha yeah, that's common misconception about government giving something for "free".



Pretty much this. At first this news sounds great, but when you dig deeper, it more looks like a publicity stunt than something legit and with honest intentions. There are still many questions unanswered but once that wallet is out we will know what's actually going on.

This will surely make a huge impact on how the world view bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It will make a good impression if ever El Salvador's decision caused them to improve their economy. Nevertheless, if ever it flops, surely bitcoin will have a bad reputation and will cause a sudden fall in bitcoin's value. Now that it has been done within a nation and this time it's for real, let us hope that everything would work well because it will help us progress more on making bitcoin as a official currency in the making.

We know that who takes the first attitude has a very very big chance to be among the top world leaderships that will get in to History!

This action managed by this predictor guy isn't a simple political movement but a drastic modification in its national economy and an alert in a form of hint to the other countries which now have alredy becoming out of the game.

From now on the nation that does not choose to change will creat a gap in its economic resume. The time is very important at this moment cause it'll be directly proportional to the future benefits for a nation!

Fantastic "test"! Fantastic experience with a 99.9% positive result, safe and sound!

One example of the adoption of Bitcoin that is actually carried out in a country with the full support of the head of government. Elsavador will not only adopt but will develop the potential possessed by bitcoin. Starting a campaign by giving away $30 in Bitcoin will certainly make the Elsavador Community learn how to use Bitcoin and learn what its advantages and disadvantages are.
this is one form of example to lift the economy in the country with a more modern platform.

I see several problems with this:

• It's not "giving away" money when it comes from taxes. People basically get a fraction of their own money back.
• They use $30 instead of 0.0009551 BTC or 95510 sat
• Citizens are required to install a wallet provided by the government
• Apart from the privacy concerns, it wouldn't surprise me if there are security problems in their newly created wallet app

But what really worries me is this:
I expect some form of fractional reserve Bitcoin.

I can't find much about the wallet:
Considering how high on-chain fees can get, I don't think they'll use on-chain transactions. The next best thing would be using the Bitcoin Lightning Network. But I kinda expect they'll create their own centrally controlled "Bitcoin" that can only be used within their government approved app. So you can send it to other people in El Salvador, but you can't send it to any other wallet. That means you can't send it abroad, and it also means the government doesn't have to buy thousands of Bitcoins to distribute to their citizens. If they create a special permission to withdraw on-chain to another wallet, they'll only need a much smaller amount for those on-chain settlements.

The more I read about this, the more I think they only use the name Bitcoin, but not actual Bitcoins.