Bitcoin Forum

Anyone have read President Nayib Bukele article on the Bitcoin Magazine?

I really like how he answered his detractors here specially those who are saying that it's very wrong to invest their money on bitcoin.

And about censorship? let me quote,


https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/stop-drinking-the-elites-kool-aid

And so at least he has responded to those who have criticized him, the media, the financial watchdog and the West.

It does seem like he could be right about the mainstream media narrative hiding things. I didn't see anything on TV saying El Salvador passed the bitcoin bill. It's hard to tell if they saw the news as potentially negative though (if people hadn't heard of El Salvador before or only heard of it negatively) or if they were actually just trying to hide it.

I wonder if this is him still trying to defend his insistence of his country's investment in bitcoin or if it's him trying to attract a certain audience (like we saw with gamestop).

The second would probably be a lucrative strategy for them (as it was for gamestop) but I imagine, if it is that, the hedge funds are going to start doing exactly the same thing and try to profit off it too...

It's quite impressive they are laying the groundwork for a web3 integrated economy though (as it'd look like they are by sending citizens bitcoin) it should make them much more capable of embracing new technologies and allow their economy to boost as a result (it's probably something other countries will and should do, at least with a CBDC as the fastest growing economies will soon be the most adaptive - or may already be).

I find it funny quoting the "west" when the entire Europe is east of Salvador but, has he touched the subject of the aid money he has received from the evil west? Oh wait, no, that would bring down his whole commie manifesto against the evil capitalist pigs!

https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/el-salvadors-economy-sputters-and-us-aid-policies-are-theculprit

https://sv.usembassy.gov/usaid-emergency-assistance-to-el-salvador-for-tropical-storm-julia/

The United States has provided over $4.4 billion in development assistance through USAID and its predecessor U.S. Government programs
https://www.usaid.gov/el-salvador/history

And speaking of kool aid,

Where is that geothermal 200MW powerplant that was ready a year ago that would be dedicated just for bitcoin mining?
Where are the incentives for miners in Salvador and why is Salvador importing electricity and asking citizens to pay more than every country around them (from which they import energy)
What happened to the Bitcoin bonds that were supposed to be 300% oversold?
What happened to the 500 million city that is going to cost at least 6 billion by the latest numbers?

Yeah, writing an angry text to the corporate overlords that are chaining the poor socialist worker is easy, running the country into the ground with a 1.7 billion or 6.5% GDP deficit is a completely different story.
But the blame game works on the brainwashed so well!

That was a brilliant and well reserved responds given by Nayib Bukele the president of El Salvador to the world, because with the statement given below which I found in the article link above, it clearly shows he really understood Bitcoin and had great trust in it before accepting it as a legal tender, which i still believe was a great move despite the fall in the price of Bitcoin. But one thing certain is that media will always want to tell a story, not minding it's authenticity, of which legalizing Bitcoin, a currency that can't be controlled by the government,  it became a target to international communities who needed to have control over it's economy. But with this, it's a clear sign El Salvador Is never ready to play along to the game

I consider this a bold step to challenge those bad mouthing El-Savador and his name reputation over the adoption, should anyone feels guilty then they should also take a step and make aove to adopt bitcoin or remain silent, this is overwhelming already as various news feeds keep on trolling all about this adoption, I've always made mention that if anything is not heard from the government of El-Savador about their adoption experience then every other claims remains a distraction of the media, El-Savador is fine and doing well with bitcoin adoption.

I think Nayib Bukele response was very appropriate. These powerful governments want to control everything. They want to ensure that the people don't have the power to determine their financial future. Issues that are against bitcoin would be given very wide publicity, while the benefits or exploits of this unique cryptocurrency are given no or fewer media coverage.

International organizations are financed by some powerful governments, which make them protect their interest to the detriment of other nations. We saw IMF and World Bank discouraging El Salvador from making bitcoin a legal tender because it would affect the dominance and gains of their financiers.

What Nayib Bukele responded is a new horizon for them to open up how the world needs Bitcoin and to protect the rights of freedom. When the government continues to control fiat finances, there needs to be a balance. Therefore, the mindset of a Nayib Bukele has paved the way for state governments who are still hesitant to adopt Bitcoin, more convinced that full control of a country's economic power is an important key in the future.

Bukele is actually right wing. But we live in times when it's hard to immediately understand if a person is left wing or right wing, because they use a similar populist rhetoric against some abstract "elites", "global establishment" and so on.

And its not nice that Bitcoin gets associated with political fringes, it just adds another reason for preventing Bitcoin from going mainstream.

The problem does not lie in the truth, but in laziness about searching for facts. You will find many people imagining an idea or something just for a clip in a movie or an analysis of a series without there being a thorough search to try to reach the truth.
So the ease of searching for information has made many lazy to check the facts.
Just look at the many who trust the first Google search result.

I’m not a fan of Bitcoin being associated with (controversial) political figures as well. But do we really have a choice? It’s bound to happen regardless if we like it or not.

if you base your view on a western map where china is on the right and america is on the left. you would think like that

try thinking from a different prospective
the earth is round.. not flat.. if you keep travelling west you can visit every country

Of course we can't stop them from engaging with Bitcoin, but we can distance ourselves from them, instead of embracing them and just turning the latest celeb who dabbled in Bitcoin into the latest "Bitcoin Jesus". Especially after the many cases of it immediately backfiring, like with Elon Musk.

the beauty of bitcoin is that it has no "CEO", top management, no representative, or board of directors. Anything. Indeed None.

This is what I like about bitcoin. Decentralized to such a degree that anyone can be a part of it but no one can really influence it with a "click of the mouse" like in a company or some governments.

NB is a character that may be criticized ... but this "opinion" about "elite" is acceptable for many points of view.

President Nayib Bukele is quite confident over his decision. Once we were able to see lots and lots of criticism against him. Now it have changed and the statement from him resembles the real value of bitcoin. He hadn't invested/adopted it the legal tender without reason or just for its growth that can improve the country's economy. His understanding to stay independent and out of control from others gets fulfilled. He have shown the real use of bitcoin to the world. Surely in the long run El Salvador will profit big out of its positive move with bitcoin.

It's better to have these people on our side than against us.

I like that Bukele is trying to do something innovative, choosing things other people wouldn't. That's how things are done... or undone :D I feel like he's going all in with other people's money and the more he's criticized the more he pushes back with "bad West".

There are things I like about and in which I agree with him like the fact that the IMF is corrupt to the bone and its threats that Bukele should drop Bitcoin support are annoying and show how much the banksters hate free money. There are also things I don't like playing a victim and acting like the whole world is against him.

I'm quite sure that if he manages to hold what he's invested for another year or 2 he's going to come out ahead. We'll see if he can survive the pressure.

So of course, but the losses from investing in bitcoin are only about 0.17% of GDP or 2.9% of the budget deficit, Bukele says this in the article. At the same time, only the amount of transaction fees for transfers of funds from salvadorans outside the country to their families annually amounts to about $400 million.

Well here are the figures that Bukele cites in the article : "In 2021, our GDP grew by 10.3%, tourism revenues increased by 52%, employment increased by 7%, new enterprises grew by 12%, exports increased by 17%, energy production increased by 19%, energy exports increased by 3,291%, and domestic revenues increased by 37%, and all this without raising any taxes. And this year, the crime and homicide rate has decreased by 95%."

https://i.imgur.com/EZFLsoV.jpg

It seems that it is not worth saying that the adoption of bitcoin was a fatal mistake of the Bukele government, and it is not worth considering that this is a panacea for overcoming the crisis.

We were in a bull market all the way in 2020 and 2021. Basically all the stocks went up. If Bukele were to choose a portfolio of stocks and then sell it all in 2021 and buy USD his finances would've been better. Was the decrease in crime really the result of bitcoin adoption? I doubt it.
Him being a decent leader is one thing and his bitcoin adoption is another because he's down on this investment and his failed attempt to build a bitcoin city only makes people see him as a dreamer.

Well, this guy clearly knows how to say things that will appeal to a broad audience, resonate with them. He is talking about 'the world's powerful elites', but also NGOs and media, and he is strongly putting a distance between him and them, so that he is perceived as a simple guy, like other regular people. All that stuff about controlling the truth sounds good to ignite anger against 'them' and sympathy toward Bukele himself. While being elected democratically and maintaining a high approval rate, he his also ruling the country in an authoritarian manner, cracking down on opposition. He is a right-wing politician with conservative views not only on same-sex marriage, but also on abortion in any situations (including rape and risk to health of the mother) and euthanasia.
So while he is very pro-Bitcoin and is clearly okay with more financial freedom of his citizens, his talk of freedom in the article and him accusing everyone else for controlling the truth aren't completely fair.

Is this the same country that half a year ago was in such a dramatic situation that the president could not leave the country because of the gang conflict and, as he said, the extremely difficult and complex security situation in the country? The figures he showed seem as if they came from a world where problems are solved by magic, and not by real measures, the results of which have to be waited for years.

I don't think that someone is a positive person just because he adapted Bitcoin, because there are many things about the president that obviously no one is interested in or simply don't want to know. He is not too different from others... El Salvador Bitcoin (https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/02/26/el-salvador-bitcoin-tether-buys-itself-a-country-and-why-chivo-sucks/)
 
And who will say that he is wrong when his party rules the country completely?

this must be a mistake because the picture in my mind every time El Salvador is mentioned on the news is that you end up dead inside an oil barrel filled with cement if you get tangled with the violent gangs in the country. of course its what we hear on the media.

when Bukele started making noise mixing up with BTC, i begin to change my view though. at least i can see in my mind gangsters using BTC wallet on the Bitcoin beach.

seriously if he succeed in making his country richer and can pay their debts, aren't we suppose to be happy and proud to that?

Take it or not El-Savador has turned new leave with it achievements in recent times aside from the adoption with bitcoin, the economy is stable enough for sustainability and the average El-Savadoran are doing well with their daily enterprise, social vices has been dealt away with and the crime and rate of homicide activities has been curtailed to the lowest minimum level and citizens have their right way back to freedom and life

For sure, there must be some truth in Bukele's words. But the other side would also have some relevant answers to this had they cared to directly respond. I haven't heard of any.

But the point is that they are against El Salvador accommodating Bitcoin as a legal tender to their country. They are, therefore, against El Salvador becoming successful in this decision, or perhaps experiment. They simply wouldn't want El Salvador proving itself right and themselves wrong in the end. That would deal a heavy blow against their fiat, their system of control, and an affirmation of Bitcoin. That would have serious implications against the very system upon which their survival is founded.

Ah, yes. Bitcoin is the ultimate alternative against "the powers that be", but at the same time 90% of the Bitcoin traders/investors want more regulations from the same "powers that be"(central banks, governments), which would lead to wider crypto adoption and higher BTC prices.
We are against "the powers that be", the rich elites and the institutional investors, but at the same time, we want the rich elites and the institutional investors to adopt BTC, so that the BTC price could reach the moon. Isn't this hilarious?
Bukele is a politician, which means that he is a professional liar(like all politicians). I don't expect any politician to tell me the truth.

I'm not trying to make a saint out of Bukele going to the scaffold for the sake of progress, I just brought his figures from the article and say that losses from investments in bitcoin for the country are not such big numbers that it would be worth worrying about.
I think that he himself did not expect such pressure from financial organizations, he simply cannot admit it now, although on the other hand, all this hype around El Salvador and bitcoin is a good way to disguise critical problems, there is no quick solution here.

When anyone scratches below the surface, they will always find some dirt, and Bukele, like most people, is just a man prone to everything that he condemns in others. If, by any chance, instead of Bitcoin, that altcoin became a legal tender in the ES, most people would not even know that country exists or where it is at all.
 
Bukele changed his strategy at the last moment, or better said, he accepted a more generous offer. All that "pressure" that is being talked about actually affects him in the sense that he is constantly in the media which is not bad for him personally, nor for the country in terms of free promotion.

When we talk about losses (current & unrealized) then it is quite evident that they exist if we take into account the average price at which the president has bought BTC so far. However, from a broader perspective, ES did not lose much, nor did it gain much with Bitcoin, especially if we know that people outside the country were happier about everything than local residents.

Personally I think he's right, he and his country are smeared for not toeing the Western line, this article from today says

"This misunderstood country might be the most underrated winter sun option on Earth
It is rarely in the news for the right reasons, but this Central American nation with a Bitcoin-loving leader deserves a rebranding"

Link via Wayback Machine to avoid paywall

https://web.archive.org/web/20221030081329/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/central-america/el-salvador/why-el-salvador-might-underrated-winter-sun-option-earth/

When looking at the mainstream media these days, it is pretty funny how they are attacking El Salvador because of their bitcoin adoption while at the same time praising the new UK prime minister for its alleged positive stance towards cryptocurrencies; someone who was installed into office in a country that claims to have democracy and is the third UK PM in 45 days!
Meanwhile El Salvador's economy is growing while UK economy is shrinking!! #koolaid :D

Mainstream media always try to make news out of the powerful/grown countries. This is what happened with the new Prime Minister Rishi. He's a cryptocurrency believer, and the same is made a big positive news. Bigger things being done by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is criticized by the media. It is clear that the media too stands along with the developed countries. President Nayib Bukele have mentioned it rightly adding media to the list of industry.