Topic: Soyapango is proving that Bitcoin adoption alone is not enough (Read 269 times)

The success of an adoption can't be seen overnight.  It takes years before we can see improvement especially when the one adopting Bitcoin is a developing country.  I don't know what else should be done if adoption isn't enough.  As far as I know when we said adoption, infrastructure, business, and marketplace are built for that purpose.  It should be.. the government, buying Bitcoin isn't enough to propel the mass adoption of Bitcoin.

This time I won't worry about Fuds, obviously binance is being played badly after the crash of FTX. We are still in the bear season, so sharks will find every excuse to make the market go down, even more, to get people to give up and sell their bitcoins for the lowest price. No need to consider and you should take advantage of buying more with Binance's Fuds.

But do you actually think mere investing in Bitcoin alone long term could make a country get out of poverty? No, I literally don't think so, because I know their are basic things that needs to be put in place for growth to manifest itself (i.e empowerment, good roads, education, infrastructure e.t.c). El Salvador is a country of over approximately 7million people, that have got its own challenges right from time, of which you literally don't  expect it's only adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender to automatically charged the country's economic situation overnight. It is a gradual process.

There is no coercion just incentives. I don't want to use the fiat of my country, and now i have the alternative of Bitcoin with or without the State blessing. There the State was put in favor which i find very convenient, but its not like you can't use USD, the USD has not been banned so i don't know where you get that rhetoric from. People are simply invited to accept a new payment method, that the State is even willing to serve as payment processor for (and you can opt for a private company instead).

Bukele not only adopted bitcoin, but is putting an end to those very gangs you are talking about, that decades of previous govs did nothing about.

To give you a perspective, my country did in fact banned the USD and anything different to the local fiat from 2003 to 2019 until they couldn't stop the "black" market anymore and just gave up after zeroes and zeroes slashed from the fiat. Nominally now you can pay in that fiat, an "equivalent of" USD, or pay directly with "foreign currency" (with extra tax), and many even accept bitcoin, etc.

The USD being "strong" is only relative to the other fiats (they all falling together, just some faster than others), but Biden is making sure this does not remain the case. And here lies the problem of the matter, they can do things like "print" more (soon no printing, all digital zeroes thanks to CBDCs). If the USD collapses the world will simply switch to another reference of value, its old news for those of us who know what is living under hyperinflation like.

I am not so sure what some people were expecting out of the process we are watching at El Salvador, bitcoin is not going to resolve issues like poverty or anything like that, also we are in the bearish part of this cycle and this has diminished the interest in bitcoin for the time being so it is natural merchants prefer to get some fiat right now, but once things improve the rate of adoption at El Salvador and around the world will improve and merchants will be more willing to accept bitcoin as a payment as well.

Nayib Bukele alone can't push Bitcoin anyway. He did everything from his end. But the whole crypto market is quite Shaky right now. Even Binance facing a huge amount of withdrawal from their exchange. The situation becoming worst every day. A country or a person won't change the situation. It's hard to find right now why Bitcoin should pump. A lot of rumors surrounding the crypto space especially Binance FUD pulling down the market again. We have to wait for a few days to see the market reaction.

Imagine being the government of a country whose financial system's fate is tethered to that of the American financial system.

That's why it's really huge that El Salvador as a county have made this jump towards financial freedom at a country level. Kudos to them.

Interesting fact, not sure if valid or not as we don’t really know what’s going on inside El Salvador. However, just grabbing more and more bitcoin does not really make sure that country is fully adopted. It only means El Salvador government has their own bitcoin reserves. On the other hand it seems unrealistic to just keep buying bitcoins and if they are not getting circulated properly in and out then what’s the point anyways?
Does it mean El Salvador is just looking for opportunity to grow with bitcoin and become the richest country in the world. Don’t know, the adoption is complicated because there is no proper channel.

Never mind all the mistakes he made with awarding multi-million dollar grants to random companies lobbying for him or his supporters, that's always what governments do, dictator or not.

Just not even sure the coins he bought (with public funds) were agreed upon by the people (rhetorical query) or if they were even able to decide what to do with it, or even if they knew how to control it (if it's really for their future).

Again, adoption's got no short cuts, not even with paying several million dollars.

Good things take time and bitcoin mass adoption is something that will take a good amount of time.
Even the credit cards took around 20 - 25 years to become globally adopted whereas its just 14 years for bitcoin.
Also, the private firms pushed credit card adoption whereas the support for bitcoin has just started to grow.
Moreover the current economic conditions are terrible for a mass adoption and not to forget bitcoin price that is in a bearish market.
So we will have to wait at least for 5 years to see a growth in bitcoin adoption.

Do we need another thread about El Salvador and Bitcoin? Even less do we need those who do not want or cannot understand that the fact that Bitcoin is legal tender in a country does not mean that everyone wants to use it, especially if we consider that they have an alternative in the form of US dollars that they have been using for more than 20 years.

I don't know what the OP and others like him think, maybe Bukele should find some way of coercion to "convince" people to use Bitcoin, maybe hire gangs to carry out that mission?

It's always two side in a story, others says that Bukele failed El Salvador when he accepts Bitcoin as a legal tender. On the other hand there are supporters are lauding him for doing that.

Because it is because that we are in a bear market that there are a lot of criticism in his end and how he turn his country and so on and so forth. But just imagine in the next two years if he still in the office and that huge sum of $425m worth of BTC suddenly becomes billions for them?

There is a ton of transactions that can wait a day. Only the bare smallest of them need things "now". When you live in hyperinflation you don't even have physical cash to begin with, so you do things like bank transfers which, unsurprisingly, in many countries take at least one day, often more.

There are ways to work with Bitcoin as it is, you just need to change your mindset. You have been spoiled too long from using fiat that doesn't lose half its value within hours (use it or lose it, therefore people don't want to own much of it in the first place which push it down even faster).

LN is a digital tab, so, you could actually use the traditional type of tab instead and then pay periodically, or buy online pay in advance, go when after it gets one confirmation (since the following confirmations occur quickly after that). Or find some prepaid card that accepts bitcoin or just exchange into fiat what you are going to spend that day anyway.

How else other than using the Lighting Network do you expect merchants to use Bitcoin then? It is unrealistic to have to wait for ~10 minutes for a payment to be confirmed.

The capacity of LN keeps growing every month and the UIs keep getting easier to use.

You and your FUD about LN will never cease
El Salvador started adoption of bitcoin with a mixture of decentralized and centralized solutions. The very first wallet they introduced to their population (Chivo) was a centralized closed source wallet that mostly attracted people with the free giveaway. At the same time they accepted decentralized solutions including LN and haven't stopped.

els salvador made the mistake of buying bitcoin at government level for future benefit of citizens via government investments that will fruition i a few years
however they also made he mistake of being conned into accepting the LN network with a faulty software, flawed protocol, lack of rules/consensus and limited liquidity being touted as "bitcoin" which lead to 3 months of headachs at he end of 2021 when the president was trying to get user adoption..

since then he switched away from LN and is now using a CEX of btc utility for its people and businesses. but has put the promotion of such on the back burner until everything is truly tested and funds are assured and issues are ironed out to not be a repeat. in short he is being more cautious this time and doesnt want to get burned by another services managing users funds [and maybe overpromising] things.

education can be very simple. a few youtube videos or tv adverts strategically placed can reach the masses of elsalvadorians

To me, adoption has never really just meant sticking up a logo of Bitcoin and saying you accept payment, though. And I don't mean that shops putting up Bitcoin logos and country's saying Bitcoin's legal aren't useful, it's just a very superficial (if visible) step.

I say this having visited Bitcoin "cities", BTC merchants, ATMs, etc. Only to face cashiers who don't know how to use the system,  much less explain what Bitcoin is. ATMs that don't work, shops who need you to scan a QR code and nothing else when you were expecting to just have a BTC address ready.

Adoption is people using it, often, a lot, other than for trading. And I've found it doesn't need a country to say it's legal, doesn't need ATMs all around, doesn't need stickers all over the place.

Awareness is amazing (who's online and not aware of Bitcoin today?), but it isn't adoption.

Indeed. Although blockchain can be taught, cryptocurrency is just different from typical fiat currency  Volatility makes it complex for normal individuals especially those who are non-investors. They'd more likely be at risk from engaging into this industry ; risk of losing money.Hsaring the idea of this technology is good but forcing it to the majority will just cause more problems instead of pushing general adaptation of this industry. Much better to allow people do what they wanna do. If they are really interested with cryptocurrency, support them. People of this generation especially the past, are not yet ready of a currency which is too volatile to handle.

I see Nayib's choice to invest in Bitcoin a long term strategy to get El Salvador out of the dumpster.  It takes a long time for a country to fully transition from one kind of currency to another.  And I am talking about Fiat.  Bitcoin is even harder to get adopted.  It is something new, volatile and digital.  Not many people trust it.  Its public face has been tainted by Main Stream Media enough to lower down the level of trust in Bitcoin.

El Salvador will not transition from USD to BTC.  Bitcoin will only be included as an alternative.  This means we have to expect fewer businesses and citizens adopting it because they are too used to USD.  Level of adoption will probably rise once bull markets return and drop once the bull hides away.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Bitcoin is not fit to become an official currency system of any country. It's complicated for a layman to understand. It has fees to be determined and paid for every transaction. The price of bitcoin is volatile. None of these parameters are fit to become an official currency.

I really want to thank Mr. Bukele for his contribution to the growth of bitcoin. But he can't control his own citizen's thinking process. People want convenience. Bitcoin is creating complications rather than reducing it.