Topic: Is Bitcoin suitable to become legal tender? (Read 517 times)

I think one of the reasons many countries around the world do not want to make Bitcoin legal tender is because they wouldn't be able to ask for capital gains tax from an appreciating asset compared to their local currency.

Bitcoin itself is more than suitable to become legal tender though, specially through Lightning. El Salvador seems to be working quite well with it as legal tender.

I think bitcoin is okay to be a legal tender in one's country. Bitcoin being a legal tender doesn't necessarily mean that the country will abandon its local currency and just use bitcoin for everything. It's just another form of payment that people have as an alternative if ever they don't want to use fiat money. It's not really mandatory to use it, it's still up to the citizens if they want to use it or not. I think El Salvador's government put up with this because of the existing crypto users in their country and because they have seen the potential of crypto.

We can prevent bad situations to happen such as being scammed if only people would be more wary and cautious of who to trust and what sites or platforms to engage with. In fiat money, scamming also happens. Don't put it like being scammed just occurs in crypto. It can happen anywhere, anytime, and to anyone who isn't cautious enough to secure their funds. We can't really babysit and spoonfed everyone, do we? We can give out warnings and educate them and the rest is up to the owner of the wallet. You must secure your own assets and funds. You shouldn't let anyone look after it. You are in charge and you are responsible for your assets, not other people.

All of these speculative reasons why Bitcoin might not be a good idea to be adopted by a country can be analyzed maybe two years after El Salvador made it as a legal tender of the country. I think that by then we can see the advantages and disadvantages played within the country and its people. And I am looking forward to that anniversary in El Salvador so we can assess what eventually happened. Right now, it is too early to say anything with this El Salvador experiment...though of course I am looking forward to see it successfully adopted by the people of El Salvador but you know as in anything there will always be problems and bottlenecks along the way.

There is no doubt that only by using Bitcoin as legal tender can we gain true sovereignty and stand up to speak.

Well they have already taken the decision, going back on it now wouldn’t be a good thing for them to do.
Rather they should look for a way to improve things in that country. That there is a less percentage of internet users doesn’t mean that bitcoin cannot function there, it can function there and people can make use of it for transaction as long as they have what it takes to make use of it.

As for those who don’t have it yet, they can continue to make use of Fiat. Making bitcoin a legal tender is not really necessary, and personally I don’t see any much impact that’s going to make at all, it can just be a legal asset that anyone can be free to use and nothing much here.

I share the same thoughts. When we mean by 'legal tender' it does not necessarily mean that it should be the universal accepted form of payment in the country. It just requires that our respective banks recognize it as an alternative mode of payment in the payment of debts where you can compel a person to accept such.

Bitcoin, as a legal tender, can be very promising but what needs to be balanced is its volatility since it can be prejudicial to the person accepting it. But as a form of alternative payment, I do agree that it would bring more benefits than harm to the community.

It could be a legal tender in the country as long as the government does not have a problem using bitcoin as a legal tender. Perhaps Bitcoin will be a legal tender in the country with a better internet connection as the internet will be the main factor in using crypto. While the other developed country can use bitcoin as their investment, and as time goes by, their people can use bitcoin as another payment system when everything is ready.

i dont know but recent news says that some ATM in el savador destroyed by anti - Bitcoin,

rather than make bitcoin legal tender like elsavador as second money

it would be great as an asset but make stable coin legal as fiat do

so crypto other than stable considering as an asset but stable coin for payment

Every country has its own laws and they have the right to regulate their country with things that have never been tried by other countries, such as El Salvador which is currently legal to use bitcoin as their currency and I believe they have made rules that can be accepted by the wider community although some of them must first explore how to use digital currencies, If El Salvador can fully use bitcoin as a legitimate means of payment and there are no problems whatsoever then I'm sure other countries will definitely follow suit.

price volatility makes bitcoin in some countries unsuitable for us to make as a legal currency, maybe that's the reason some countries refuse to accept bitcoin as a legal currency, and the government in my country never wants to accept bitcoin as a legal tender, because in my country there are still very many people who do not understand about bitcoin..

Op wrote a well-grounded set of points on suitability of Bitcoin as a legal tender. However, I'd like to contest some of those points, while also adding one point that supports the op's argument. The point I want to add is that Bitcoin is simply not scalable enough to be adopted as a legal tender, and it's going to become increasingly more problematic with the growth of adoption. The Lightning network and other suggested solutions can only do so much to improve the situation, but cannot fully solve the problem. That being said, I want to address the three arguments by the op. First, perhaps adopting Bitcoin will help encourage the usage of the Internet and bring new resources to ensure that the Internet is more widely available in El Salvador. Also, AFAIK, El Salvador still uses the USD as their legal tender and individuals aren't forced to use Bitcoin instead.
As for financial literacy and reasonable investments, people suffer from scams a lot when Bitcoin is not around as well, investing in Ponzi schemes and other things, and I'm not sure that crypto adoption increases the number of victims.

With bitcoins volatility it is hard to accept it for now as a legal tender. But if you are not willing to invest on it and will sell it too if gained then it is also a good choice for you. Having a multiple option will result to a good decision.

I think the most suitable is not legal currency, but the most suitable is anchor currency. Just like the US dollar, it anchors the fiat currencies of all countries.

I'm not really sure about this. Bitcoin was not made for becoming the legal tender of any country actually. It just aimed to give the freedom of making peer-to-peer transactions and trading without the need of a bank. In this case, I wouldn't be very sad if Bitcoin is not used as the legal tender of any country. It might be suitable for developing and underdeveloped countries but we don't know whether they will do fine in the future also.

Bitcoin cannot be used as legal tender. Its price instability is risky, and its decentralization is difficult to control. Bitcoin will not be guaranteed by the government like fiat currency, it is insecure. Bitcoin users are a minority, and many people do not understand it but prefer to use national fiat currency.

Bitcoin becoming legal currency does not mean that the original national legal currency disappears, and the two can coexist and use.
It has now entered the digital age and the trend of digital currency is emerging. Bitcoin can be used freely by citizens. Many countries and institutions are also considering using it. It is inevitable that Bitcoin will become legal currency in the future.

Yes but it becomes more complex if a country annouce that they have legalize it as a legal tender, if the occupants of a country are not smart enough to handle bitcoin owning maybe they will get mad to their government if the price of bitcoin is going drop so big.
So before a country legalize bitcoin tender, they have to make sure their people are ready for it. Maybe it could be work on developed countries

Adopting bitcoin as a legal tender will never bring negative impact, its even more on positive side because the citizens will definitely have the full freedom to use bitcoin in as much as they want. And since the world is alreaday in its digital age, the currency should also go along with it. This does not mean that we will eliminate the fiat completely but it will be a step by step process. Maybe if all the individuals can already cope up with the changes in currency adoption and start to adjust, then bitcoin will definitely be a good currency. Its even better because it has no inflation in it but only deflation instead.   

Anything can happen in crypto. Becoming a legal tender has been done by El Salvador. But they are in polemic at the moment. It was natural that many problems would arise, so they would come up with a solution. This is the beginning I'm sure if they are able to develop and succeed with bitcoin other countries will follow it.
But in the near term, I don't think many countries will legalize it as a means of payment. Although I believe the blockchain network will become more congested and as a side effect transaction fees will be expensive and time consuming. Besides that at this time, humans are in a shift, after the golden generation has power in government I think policies will change a lot, including the use of bitcoin as a means of payment.

1 Is a slowdown, but in El Salvador they have installed hundreds of ATMs for this transition, besides Starlink seems to be finally becoming available so this point is becoming nil.

2 Is irrelevant to being a legal tender. Trading is not something common people need to do.
You don't need "financial education" to hold your money, all you need to learn is how to keep it safe (write down the seed words in a piece of paper, etc).

3 Scammers were not invented by Bitcoin or the Internet. If a stranger is asking you for money (under whatever excuse) and you give it, there is your problem.

These are low excuses with political motivation, rather than Bitcoin you want to attack the current politicians in power, without looking at the big picture. This goes way beyond Bukele and their party, if you have anything against them ask the other two parties why they didn't do it. It is too late now and when you oppose Bitcoin you can only make a fool of yourself.

By adopting Bitcoin El Salvador is removing their current and future politicians and banksters from ever being able to manipulate money again, it of course does this to the foreign politicians and bankers of the foreign fiat coin also currently in use there.

Why does the Frente want their own fiat? So they can repeat another bolivar (current worst hyperinflation on Earth). And Arena, probably the same thing. Funny how those two supposedly opposite parties converge against Bitcoin. Its good for them to be against it, it means its good.

While some of your points are valid, I will like to confirm to you that this same 30-40% percent of the population that has access to using the internet in El Salvador that makes you think that they are not equipped for it, is also the same percentage of the population that only had access to bank accounts in El Salvador



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and they still find their way around using their fiat currency for decades. I would like to see this process as starting a Business venture which the first years are always the toughest and as all in the crypto space have agreed, El Salvador took the bold step in adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender and using their self as the guinea pig for this great experiment and will definitely correct every challenge they will meet along the way.
 

Yes it's suitable, legal tender just means that it's recognized by the legal system for paying your transactions and bitcoin has been used for that so I really don't see how bitcoin's not suitable to have the title of legal tender, it gives the public the option on how to pay for their transactions.

Therefore, there are still many countries that reject Bitcoin as a legal tender. Because the government was afraid of the national currency
becoming weakening, not even a few countries think that Bitcoin will replace fiat if it is legalized as a legal tender. Moreover, the volatile Bitcoin
price is indeed an obstacle why until now there are still few merchants who accept Bitcoin payments. To be honest, Bitcoin is not yet suitable as
a legal tender, but why not to try it first like El Salvador did. Because I believe there will be benefits that can be obtained, if there is an alternative
payment other than fiat, at least it will make people more choices in making transactions.

And I also believe that if Bitcoin is legalized as a legal tender, it will not replace fiat. Because from the beginning Bitcoin was created not to replace fiat,
but to provide another alternative in making payments. After all, there are still many people who are still comfortable making payments with fiat,
and also there are places where there is no internet network it is impossible to use Bitcoin. So after all fiat is still very much needed, would be better
fiat and Bitcoin co-exist.

Do you not come from a country where the value of the fiat is so low that it needs hundreds or thousands of units to pay for something? Try to come to Africa or Asia,,, India or Thailand for example you need to pay hundreds or thousands of the fiat currency for a small bottle of Coke.

And yet they are suitable.

1 satoshi is still not 1 cent. Of course it is possible.

i think its not possible for bitcoin to become the international legal tender, because bitcoin's value is so high right now and many countries don't have enough resources to compensate for the value of bitcoin, meaning the international trade will crash because only the rich countries can buy goods and have the asset to be globally competitive in the economic aspect

I think so, I mean what does a legal tender do? It's just a title to say that they acknowledge something can be a medium of exchange, so I don't think that we should have any qualms with bitcoin becoming a legal tender.

Bitcoin is not yet suitable as a legal tender. Its price is unstable and other factors do not apply to trading currencies. If a country uses Bitcoin as a legal currency, their original currency will become weaker and their payment methods will also be changed.

Although its quite unstable but its still good to adopt since it has a huge potential in terms of using it on transaction and also the potential to earn there is big since we know how good bitcoin is in terms of bouncing back again after dumping state happen. But for adopting countries maybe the best thing to do is not to rush all things since we know how dangerous the volatility is and they need to educate first their citizens for a year so that they will know what to do in terms of bear market seasons.

I don't think it's suitable Adopting bitcoin as a legal tender because we know Cryptocurrencies are notoriously unstable and difficult to control or even impossible. What's also worrying is that there are so-called “whales” or “whales”, those who control wallets with large amounts of bitcoins. . There are approximately 2,000 wallets each containing over 1,000 bitcoins. It is not known who controls these wallets, but if some whales decide to sell their bitcoins, there is likely to be a tremendous price drop. Lastly, there are growing concerns about bitcoin's environmental impact that could be considered. While it is not clear how this issue will be resolved, it should be evaluated as part of the decision to make bitcoin legal.

In regards to the first point, I guess we could blame it on lack of physical Bitcoins or the use of virtual Bitcoin alone. You could face similar issue with fiat in countries that don't have much of their population online.
The problem is really not Bitcoin. You can build a safer space for your people to use it safely. The safe space could also include the ability to reverse Bitcoin transactions... which wouldn't affect the main Bitcoin network.

I haven't seen any compelling argument why Bitcoin should be rejected by people in countries like Venezuela. Should they reject Bitcoin while they accept their own national currency as legal tender? Which is more risky in terms of price volatility, Bitcoin or the fiat? Which is safer to save money on long-term?
I wish the post is balanced to help me understand how genuine your intention is.

Actually, none of the cryptocurrencies except stablecoins are suitable for being made legal tender I think. Because the volatility is the main problem. None of the developed countries would like to accept a volatile cryptocurrency as their main currency. Because the economy of the country can be affected very badly when the times that the price drops very sharply. Bitcoin is seen as a hope for only the underdeveloped and developing countries as their currencies are worthless.

Bitcoin is currently not suitable to be the legal tender of all countries. Bitcoin itself has many unstable factors. If it is the legal tender of most countries, it is very easy to cause economic crisis!

The readiness of most aspects in that country is very important to determine that Bitcoin is suitable as a legal tender or not. Of course, it will not be all people and aspects in the country, but at least most or more than 50%.
And in this case, Bitcoin is a legal tender in that country, it is one of the currencies to be able to be used in that country right? It means that it is a choice besides the native currency right?
So, it means that we are free to use or not use it when doing such payment?
I mean, many merchants there may provide some payment methods by using Bitcoin and fiat of the country. And as long as we want to use BTC, we can use it.
It may be difficult in the early stage, but if this has been a habit, common, and also a long time, it may work well.
About how if Bitcoin suddenly drops?
I am sure that every merchant who serves Bitcoin payment has noticed and understood about this and they must have planned what to do right now and in the future.

btw, about this, there will be always pros and cons

I don't think that bitcoin is good enough to be used on its own as a main currency for a country, because there are a lot of problems concerning the microtransactions that are worth for 10 dollars or below, where you want to buy a snack you have to pay have of it as fees, and there transactions take some time to be verified, sure it seems right now fine but when the network gets crowded with transactions things start getting bad. so that is why i feel like bitcoin should be used as a secondary payment method.

Even if bitcoin is suitable for legal tender, I still prefer to use fiat money to buy products or my daily needs and keep my bitcoin for the investment thing. Related to El Salvador, I think those people can save their bitcoin in their wallet while still working and getting paid in fiat money to use it for their daily lives. Bitcoin comes to them to give them a chance to make money from trading and investment to use those ways to make more money for their future.

Maybe before a country can use bitcoin as legal tender, they need to prepare infrastructure so that they will not have a problem when they use bitcoin. Many things need to prepare and maybe the government needs to make new regulations too.

In addition to the points you've made about the clear unsuitability of bitcoin to become legal tender, I'd like to introduce one more piece of evidence bitcoin shouldn't be legal tender whatsoever. What is legal tender law serving for? It aims at preventing competition between the fiat currency government is promoting and any other (better) forms of money such as gold, silver, or bitcoin. If there were a free market for money and no legal tender laws, fiat currency wouldn't exist at all. Bitcoin simply doesn't need to be coercively imposed on people, bitcoin loves competition and thrives on it.

El Salvador still uses USD though but also made BTC as legal tender which means they can use both. Having the massive adoption in the country means more of the people there will learn how to trade, will have the knowledge of what money is. And they are going to be educated on how Bitcoin works.

El Salvador defied what others think they can't do. I think this is very courageous of their government to do so while all other countries are trying to regulate but are actually trying to pin down crypto investors.

Adopting bitcoin and use it as a legal tender is definitely a big decision that El Salvador has chosen to. And i think there's no harm in it because the president of the country has its own positive reason why he is doing that. And that for their economy to take progress and can avoid the fast surging inflation which most of the countries are experiencing too. And the good thing about this is Bukele has not eliminated fiat so the citizens have all the chances to select payment method that are most convenient to them.

However, IMO, El Salvadorians are not totally ready for a big change since the whole nation is not totally internet connected. Needless to say, the people are not inclined with crypto and everything that won't function without the internet connection. I think its one of the biggest factors why some citizens refuse to adopt bitcoin and stay loyal to fiat.

I think you have to look at the success of digital payment methods in other 3rd world countries, before you judge people's abilities..based on their education levels. Just Google "M-Pesa" ....a mobile digital payment method that existed before Bitcoin and see how successful it is in many African countries. (Uneducated people in rural villages are using M-Pesa on mobile phones.)

Bitcoin use gives people the opportunity to be their own Banks, so sacrifices need to be made to relinquish the hold that centralized services has over people's wealth. (Most centralized services offer a safety net, but it comes at a price... a hefty price tag of exorbitant fees for services rendered)

In 3rd world countries where many citizens are working in 1st world countries.... remittance is key to people transferring money home to their people.... and Bitcoin can help these people not to be exploited by Banks and services like WD or MoneyGram, that are taking large portions of that money in the form of fees. 

Most of the time things start from a small beginning until they became massive. I think this is also the case with bitcoins where it started to be legal tender in the small country but still, it's better than nothing. It's obvious that every eye that has something to do with the crypto industry is now pointing at how El Salvador will be after they implemented bitcoins as legal tender. It will be the start of a new era for bitcoins if they will become successful with their decisions and also those countries that are about to follow their footstep will also know where to start after looking at El Salvador's progressed.

There's no problem to use Bitcoin as a legal tender and keep fiat currency as legal tender at the same time.
The fact that many people don't have access to the internet or they lack financial and technical education is a problem that can be solved.Nobody is forcing 100% of the people in a country to use Bitcoin.Using Bitcoin is voluntary.Paper Bitcoins can be printed,for all those,who don't have computers and internet connection,but I really doubt that paper Bitcoin will be convenient,because the BTC price is volatile and constantly changing.

I tend to agree and that was exactly what I'm going to say, there's no harm upon using Bitcoin or as an alternate way in using fiat.  It brings a lot of benefits and since it's was have a legal tender there's no way to worry about the tax that can be collected by the government and turn a better economy.
As long as citizens must be aware of the nature of Bitcoin, they were just fine.  Keeping it and storing it to gain value is quite risky than using it as an alternative to fiat as a payment.

I'll say, yes, Bitcoin is suitable to become a legal tender but it depends on the country how they will threaten it.  It's been a good decision when people have an option in choosing an e-currency which is very common worldwide as an online payment option.  

I agree, I also think that having BTC as legal tender is one step closer to taking the world of economy to the next level which is needed for an ever advancing technological world.

In terms, of using it to me seems like a good idea to have an option and have people choose to use crypto or not - inevitably more and more businesses start incorporating it so it's a phase enabling people to slowly transition into an inevitable financial future.

Sure, there will be plenty of opportunity for people to be scammed and so with legalisation of crypto there need to be  better awareness around this topics so people know how to stay safe.

Look you are right from your point of view. And i respect your point of view. And i saw some experts are given their opinion which is also valid. But i want to say 2 things then you think bitcoin legal tender is needed or not.

1st things bitcoin is not want to be a countries native currency replace. So why we should think about that if bitcoin is legal tender then it could be unsustainable for fiat.

2nd bitcoin could be some other things for a country like Investment assest, Payment method and business. Which is a alternative of all digital things like stock market, bank. So it can't be harmful for fiat. Bitcoin could be a site currency.


Look now i say why country sould approve?
If government approved then people can easily buy sell bitcoin in their country which is less risky. What we faced in online p2p scam. This is the biggest factor. And lots of factor had.

Indeed, this has been thought about for a long time and is quite an interesting opinion. On the one hand, as a legal payment tool, it has received support from various parties, both Bitcoiners themselves and from the government, who are tired of the inflation rate of fiat currencies. But on the other hand, as you said, the difficulty level of internet access and the ownership factor will be an obstacle if Bitcoin is made the only currency of the country.

Therefore, Bitcoin in some countries is only an investment alternative that is aligned with gold and stocks. I think it's much better, because if in the future we make Bitcoin the only means of payment in a country, it will certainly trigger the price value of paying a piece of bread = 5000 sat. What about shipping and costs?
El Salvador has two options, so don't worry, we still see that El Salvador with two options, one of which is Bitcoin, of course the residents there are free to choose.

I think as long as Bitcoin is not causing harm to the economy, which it shouldn't, people in the future shouldn't be too opposed to making Bitcoin a legal tender, like in your analogy with nuclear energy. But people might just say that it's not worth the effort if the example of El Salvador will show a very low adoption.

I think Bitcoin's success doesn't rely and shouldn't rely on governments supporting it. That would obviously be against Bitcoin's purpose.

Government looting a country and taking it to another country is an example of illegal Fiat gotten money but still it's acceptable as a legal tender, so if same bad examples uses crypto-currency, it shouldn't be a legal tender why? I don't see any reason that makes Fiat acceptable as a legal tender and crypto-currency not acceptable, except for government trying not too undervalue their currency if Bitcoin or any crypto-currency becomes a legal tender. I will be willing to take a survey or count amongst students and workers in my area about if crypto-currency should be accepted, I will make a post if I can successful pull it off.

Making bitcoins a legal tender is honestly inevitable for sure, people are using it on a very big scale now a days, I know even if it's 40% of the population but the fact is, if you do look at those numbers, it's already a lot, therefore you have to understand the fact that these things needs time and good management.
The government needs to monitor it closely since they could honestly destroy the reputation of the whole crypto community, people would definitely have problems, there would be even more scammers involved, but it's the same thing for the banks and fiats as well, at the end of the day what's important is to realize that, bitcoins is just a tool, how it's used and how it's portrayed is honestly dependent on the people itself. All the government could do is to give them a complete freedom to use it and to protect their assets legally as well, which I do think is a very good move, even if it does bring some probelms, it's something essential for the future and there are no problems that can't be solved, are there.

That’s a bit in the line of Bukele’s thought, to some extent:

(translated from Spanish)
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1439062924534943753

The second phrase denotes the speed of things in relation to traditional banking in the country. It also denotes the lack of a proper term to reference providing access to its citizens to BTC/USD through Chivo. He used the term "bancarizar" (to bank). How about Chivo Civilization – small joke here..

That’s one of the important arguments in favour of bitcoin often used, and here we may well see how banks are given a skip by many that initiate their transition to modern era digital money.

I am generally in agreement. However, we are not given many choices. There are only two questions that matter here. One is the exact question that you've raised. The other is: Is fiat suitable to become legal tender?

To your question, the answer may be a no. But to the other question, the answer is a definite and outright no. So whatever it is that makes Bitcoin unsuitable as a legal tender is not as insurmountable as fiat's.

To those countries who are trying to follow El Salvador and them making Bitcoin as a legal tender, I'm pretty sure that these countries would make such better decisions because of the errors of El Salvador, with such an early stage, I was also expecting that there would be issues such as the lack of knowledge around Bitcoin, it can't be easy for someone new to crypto to just simply get the hang of it right away. On the other hand, I think Bitcoin as a legal tender is no problem really, it's just that we can't expect that the citizens would switch right away, good keypoints OP, but for me, in this early stage, we can just wait and observe more on how the government of El Salvador manage this.

everyone must think so (the high price volatility in bitcoin that makes bitcoin unsuitable for legal tender)
but for the long term, I see Bitcoin is very suitable to be a legal tender

so far our brains are still indoctrinated with a legal means of payment that must have a stable price but the emergence of bitcoin changes our view turning 180%

for now, there are still many who think that Bitcoin is not suitable as a legal tender but I believe that over time, everyone can accept bitcoin as a legal tender

If the government introduces something, do you think all the population of the country will welcome and use it? I don't think so. A country has multiple mobile financial services. Is all the population of that country using that? Or a person has been using all the services? No, I don't think so. Same even all the population has the ability to use Bitcoin they wouldn't use it. All population interests wouldn't be the same as well. But it won't prevent Bitcoin become a legal tender. It's true when any other country intends to legalize Bitcoin same as El Salvador, then most likely they will take a deep look at El Salvador to understand reality. So a negative impact from El Salvador would prevent Bitcoin adaption too.

This is actually a very fascinating statistics. In a way it means that many El Salvadorians might skip the central bank state entirely. Going forward it might mean that in El Salvador the legitimate alternative to cash trading is using Bitcoin instead of regular banks. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as well. I do believe there is a lot of "getting used to" money that does not exist in the physical world (like with using electronic bank cards for payment)

Statista’s data is roughly the same as World Bank’s data for 2019’s Internet penetration, but it seems that it has since picked traction at a fast pace, and by beginning of 2021, it reached 50,5% of the population (+14,7% in a year). I figure the build-up to the Bitcoin Law may increase these figures sharply – we’ll see: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-el-salvador

Going over the full stats, it’s interesting to see that, for El Salvador:

 30,4% has an account with a bank institution.
  5,7% has a credit card.
  3,5% has a mobile money account.
 
Besides the degree of internet penetration, managing some kind of e-money is not that wide spread. Both will likely rise now substantially, albeit there being a delay between the population’s current foundations, and how widespread the Bitcoin Law intends to be.

There’s logically a learning curve both to use the technology, and shielding from scams, that is going to take a while to overcome, and we’ll hear all sorts of stories on user experience in this sense. It’s a bold/wild bet that we need to see how it eventually plays through.

it is up to the particular country to make bitcoin a legal tender. because each country has its own laws to protect the legal medium of exchange that has been in use for a long time. so to make bitcoin a legal medium of exchange, of course, it takes a lot of approval from the government itself. I think that if bitcoin is used as a legal medium of exchange and replaces fiat money, it is very risky for inflation to occur in a country. because bitcoin often has ups and downs against market prices.

As of now the main use for bitcoin with ties to being a bona fide currency is as an auxiliary payment method for when cash and digital payments thru fiat just wouldn't cut it. It makes sense to doubt bitcoin's viability right now considering the majority of the planet still has no idea of what a bitcoin is and how to acquire one. But as time goes by and as more and more places gain access to the internet, this will easily be upturned and would even hasten the adoption process for bitcoin. This is if a country takes a drastic turn and decides to use bitcoin over their own currency in a whim, which is hardly ever going to happen to any country as long as their leader is of course someone with half a brain and enough comprehension that adoption is a gradual process. AFAIK El Salvador's move is alright and should not cause the country any issues in terms of currency usage as they will still allow fiat operations within their territory.

Making a currency a legal tender doesn't necessarily means that the citizens HAVE to use it, it is merely a currency that the country recognizes and endorses. Fiat would probably still be a more dominant currency in use, and governments wouldn't give up their fiat for that. The problem isn't with how the citizens manage their financials but it is about how the volatility affects the user dis-proportionally. As for the point about transaction finality, it is hardly a case to be concerned about; you are responsible for your own funds and no one has to babysit them.

But again, any country recognizing it as a legal tender has an ulterior motive. That is to generate positive PR and distract others from the issues that they're facing. It is hardly a point to argue about.

bitcoin being a legal tender I think it will harm the country itself, especially if it is a developed country, where the currency of one country will look useless because in terms of value it is far away, it takes 47K usdt to have 1 BTC, so it can be said that bitcoin is not suitable if used as a means of payment

Is bitcoin suitable as a legal tender, in my personal opinion, it is not suitable if we make bitcoin a legal tender, because only countries with weak currencies will allow the use of bit coins as a substitute for legal payments. And when citizens change their means of payment, their sovereignty will be lost and the currency will be weaker. With the exception of countries producing prohibited objects, they definitely want to make transactions using this bit coin

Can you explain why having Bitcoin as legal tender means that the price of Bitcoin will fall? I would assume that the supply of Bitcoin remains largely stable while the demand for it would increase, so it would make sense at least to me that the price would also rise (though I do concede that it was not the case with El Salvador)

whether bitcoin is suitable to be a legal tender, in my personal opinion it is not suitable for us to make bitcoin a legal tender, even though el salvador has made bitcoin a legal tender, but my little heart can't accept all of that, because I'm afraid , if bitcoin has been made a legal tender, the price of bitcoin will fall, and getting a profit in investing takes a very long time.

I don't see any harm using bitcoin as a legal tender besides the fact that bitcoin might've come from illegal activities and was used so they can disposed of it immediately. Other than that, I don't think that there's nothing bad having bitcoin as a legal tender.

Recently El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. Some sources report that other Latin-American countries are planning to follow suit [1]. I personally feel that Bitcoin is not suitable currency for most types of countries that (potentially) want to adopt it. The success or failure of some countries to adopt any form of cryptocurrency will no doubt have big implications for others to follow.

The main reason I made this post is not to bash Bitcoin but so that others here could potentially shine light to the flaws in my reasoning.

First off I don´t think that El Salvador or others have the necessary infrastructure present to support transactions in crypto. Research shows that the precent of population using internet in El Salvador is roughly 30-40% [2]. This obviously means that 60-70% don´t have access to necessary prerequisite for crypto. Likewise for crypto to function as a useful legal tender, a country needs to have high level of internet availability. This is not likely the case for most countries looking to adopt it.

Secondly I don´t think that most countries have the necessary financial education to support Bitcoin as legal tender. There are some statistics that show that a shockingly small number of people even in developed countries have the necessary skill-set to even keep a balanced budget [3]. As an investment option crypto is risky. I believe I´ve seen it said on this very forum that most of crypto traders lose money. As a currency it is definitely harder to plan around than regular money specially due to Bitcoins volaitility.

Thirdly and related to second point is the fact that trading in Bitcoin can be more prone to scammers due to the fully digital nature of the currency and also due to the fact that this currency does not have a safety net provided (albeit at times poorly) by regular banks. I think that safety measures taken by some people in this forum shows nicely how well aware in cyber security one must be to feel safe around crypto. I myself have probably had at least three mini-strokes fearing that I might have sent a substantial amount of money to a wrong address. It´s a problem that is not as substantial with FIAT currencies.

So why is all this important? One can easily say that there is no harm if people have the option to either use crypto as currency but also the freedom to not use it if they so choose. I believe that at least for a time being we will be hearing bad news from El Salvadors crypto experiment. By that I mean of people losing their savings, being scammed out of money and generally having the infrastructure fail. We have one such example already [4]. This will likely create caution for other trying to follow in El Salvadors footsteps. This might have devastating implications for crypto however. Looking back in time people still bring out Chernobyl to this day to justify not using nuclear energy.


[1] https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-is-now-legal-tender-in-el-salvador-heres-what-that-means-167099
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1055468/internet-penetration-el-salvador/
[3] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/3-financial-literacy-statistics-that-need-to-change-in-2021-301246352.html
[4] https://www.reuters.com/technology/el-salvadors-bitcoin-digital-wallet-beset-by-technical-glitches-2021-09-10/