Topic: Soyapango is proving that Bitcoin adoption alone is not enough - page 2. (Read 269 times)

just to truely clarify

the article is an opinion piece wrote by a guy sponsored by lightning services(bitrefills). where he goes into restaurants malls and pharmacies advertising they accepted(past tense it was old signage they did not remove) 'strike' (lightning payments). and are told that the restaurant no longer accepts that payment

lightning (via strike) IS NOT BITCOIN

LN is a separate network
bitcoin is on the bitcoin network it never leaves the bitcoin network. whats 'paid' on the LN network is a different unit of account using a different payment relay system and units are 1000x smaller units than the bitcoin network even understands

that LN trial that started in september 2021, failed within 3 months due to complexity and liquidity issues of inability to process funds transfers

LN failed.. not bitcoin
i absolutely hate it that LN fangirls promote the dreamy hype of their silly network. yet when their network has a flaw of fails "bitcoin failed" is creamed out

LN is not bitcoin!

much like Wbtc Lbtc renbtc are not bitcoin, when subnetworks of pegged value fail its not bitcoin that failed

the linked article is a opinion piece based on a previous story by the writer

where he keeps saying he wants to pay in 'bitcoin'..
but all along he is looking for "pay with strike"(an LN system)
and its not until halfway down and by his story a few days into his visit that he finds somewhere that accepts LN for the purchase of sim cards

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/el-salvador-bitcoin-news/revisiting-el-salvador-bitcoin-year-later

asking for strike and pretending your asking to pay with bitcoin is 2 completely diferent networks and units of measure

el salvador deemed strikes lightning scheme a failure in january 2022 and instead went with a CEX model for bitcoin custody accounts for citizens and merchants

The article covers security and economic problems; in case you didn't know El Salvador is known to be dangerous country, with a history in crime, armed robbery and other vices; they are also economically retarded, so those have been some of their problems even before they ever thought of making BTC a legal tender. Did anyone expect BTC adoption to come and solve these problems in El Salvador, it is the work of their central authority, BTC is just a decentralized currency.

Nayib Bukele approved BTC being a legal tender in his country only a year ago, and made some investments in the currency too, all of these is just around a year old or so, it is still recent and unfair to pass an appraisal now, and even if an assessment is to be passed, it should be done correctly and in the right areas, not about the security situation in their country. By the way their BTC investment is a long term one, so the benefits can't be seen now, and BTC adoption is surely going to grow in El Salvador, but it is foolish to divert most of the country's problem from their central authority and direct it towards BTC that's just a currency.

Should we be moved about what people say on the media or concentrate on the real state of affairs in El-Savador by only listening to the official press release from the government, they never complained about bitcoin adoption but the media is always complaining, now it's who's business? there are two threads on the forum actively talking about El-Savador's bitcoin adoption, the first one https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/el-salvador-has-become-the-first-country-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender-5342087 and the second one still never bring it's allegations into stay despite the claim that bitcoin adoption fails in El-Savador https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5396392


Read the news very well, because to the best of my knowledge the crime rate in El-Savador has dropped and reduced to the lowest limit this year and this was achieved as a result of all the economic growth El-Savador has through it bitcoin adoption thereby reducing the genocide and crime rate.


No any backwards experience currently in El-Savador, read through the links provided above and see for yourself how lives have been better there like never before.

At a time like this where the price of BTC is quite volatile, of course individuals/merchants will think of using Bitcoin as their payment, because at any time the value of the assets they hold will change and this will certainly be detrimental for them. And because of that most of them still use USD because the value of this currency is quite stable compared to BTC.

The solution that should be provided by the government for better BTC adoption is the guarantee of a fast payment and exchange system at lower fees and an application with a more user-friendly interface for users. So when merchants/individuals receive BTC, they will automatically be given the option to exchange to stablecoins or hold their BTC in their wallet. But of course this will require further development and special attention from the government of El Salvador.

Things like this will take time to get the desired result because of the new nature. I don't see any reason why this should be considered a failure. Fiat has been in use for generations, BTC as an alternative currency is just barely a decade plus let alone El-Salvador BTC adoption that is very recent.
It is normal for people to find the use of BTC for payment a bit complicated since they are used to using fiat all their lives,  it is not enough to start looking for newer procedures because if they can't get used to paying with btc what other ways can they get used to?

The article you shared (I didn't read through it) is one of many very biased articles about bitcoin adoption in El Salvador. Basically they all expect a large percentage of adoption in this poor country and anything below that is called a failure. The reality is that the adoption in El Salvador is growing like anywhere else in the world, it is slow. But after recognition as a legal tender the speed picked up. We don't see mass adoption and we shouldn't expect it either specially during this time where the economy is bad and bitcoin price has fallen.

El Salvador does not have its own fiat. They use US dollar!

 Bitcoin experienced another accomplishment when the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele declared his country was going to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender and went on to grooming his country, going as far as purchasing a whooping sum of $425m worth of BTC. His aim? To ensure he builds a Bitcoin City worthy of attracting investors.
 In all honesty, all these look noble and point to a man invested in the growth and development of his country using the help of Bitcoin. Then where did he get it wrong??

  According to a report gathered, it seems the adoption is failing drastically as merchants over there prefer to accept payment for service using the country's fiat rather than BTC as they believe it's too complicated, while Soyapango, one of the slum dumps of El Salvador, is not benefitting from the experiment Nayib is working on, as it has been described to be one the areas infested with crime. Although the country cannot be called poor, just an economically backward country.
 I think a new strategy needs to be employed by Nayib to carry everyone along since this one seems to be failing woefully. What are your thoughts?
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