Bitcoin Forum

"Ecuador is developing its own electronic tender as digital currencies led by bitcoin have gained acceptance as a means of payment that have been promoted as a replacement for traditional money. Unlike Ecuador’s plan, most virtual currencies were developed as an alternative to government-backed tender."

Looks like Ecuador is going to be the first country to make it's own cryptocurrency. Thoughts?


Article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/bitcoin-like-money-is-ecuador-s-dollar-saving-plan.html

Thoughts? I think this is nothing like a cryptocurrency. From the article:


It appears to be just another digital fiat - just like all the other digital fiats already in circulation.

This sounds no different from a digital coupon or voucher that is treated as cash by fiat
Certainly not independent of govt interference, so not really a decentralised digital currency, just fiat in another form

There is already a thread regarding this => https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=729106.0

The article said nothing about this currency being a "crypto" currency, it just said it is a "digital" currency. So it is centralised and regulated, may not have a blockchain at all. It is nothing similar to Bitcoin at all. Ecuador is borrowing Bitcoin's publicity.

The article doesn't clarify if it will be a real crypto like those we have on this forum, similar to bitcoins.

I think that Ireland is the first country that has own cryptocurrency :-\

yep, and after canada canceld their mintchip project, big ecuador will be successful  ;D

I really wish it was possible to short their coin already...

lol - a few thousand % profit there for you if you could.
I like your thinking, true but still kinda sad for Ecuador.

Any country that creates a good digital currency will enable very secure distributed exchanges between said currency and bitcoin. They still have to compete with bitcoin's decentralized nature and fixed supply and free global market.

So now fiat is also "Bitcoin-like" cause most of it is also digital?

What makes bitcoin bitcoin is incompatible with central state control. This is to say that you can't centralize a concept that relies on decentralization as a premise and expect things to work out. A "government cryptocurrency" is just fiat by another name.

Fiat has been digital since the introduction of credit cards. Of course the reason for credit cards was to spend money that doesn't exist  :D

This would've been a great experiment if it was actually going to be a cryptocurrency but unfortunately it doesn't look like it is going to be. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before this does happen, though.

auroracoin was the first. Literally no one over here knows about Gaelcoin, bitcoiners or lay people..

Yeah, that's sad. I think a country will try issue a cryptocurrency at some point but I'm also sure they'll probably make it centralised too.

no one will adopt it unless its decreed by law
useless digital fiat like the rest of the world already has

Ecuador and all South American nations are civil law nations. This means that the governments of the respective nations can force their people - this side of complete rebellion by the people, of course - to do almost anything that they want. The United States is a common law nation along with most of Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the U.S. the people have already done the rebellion through the rebellions that the British people did over the last several hundred years, and through the fight for freedom when the United States was formed. This means that the people can legally do almost anything that they want, even to defy virtually any law the government makes. This is the reason it will be difficult for the U.S. government to legally fight Bitcoin.

Start you freedom from U.S. government persecution with these websites:

http://voidjudgments.com/ and the links at the page bottom

http://www.broadmind.org/

http://www.unkommonlaw.co.uk/

And this one is very interesting http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5duR4OvEHHxOSdEZhANETw

Read this one slowly and digest what it is saying to you http://educationcenter2000.com/Trinsey-v-Paglario.htm

:)

I thought Iceland were first with the auroacoin.

Fiat can't be digital in nature because its not definable in mathematical terms. The banking infrastructure that supports fiat is digital though.

Bitcoin, on the other hand....

This is probably as close as we are going to get to a country adopting a crypto as an "official" currency (even though it isn't a crypto in the Bitcoin sense of the word).

Governments by nature don't like things that they cannot control and profit off of.  Governments operate off of the hard work and tax dollars of its citizens, and Bitcoin takes a good portion of that away from them...

i heard mt.gox will be accepting it soon  ;)

I think equador will be the first country with crypto currency  ;D
Looks interesting.

Some people already prepare their mining RIG  ;D
but still no specification / name of this coin



Auroracoin is for Iceland, but not created by by government  ;D

Fiat is already mostly digital, so it makes no sense when they say that they will create one like it was something new.

It's "mostly digital" in the sense that you can put whatever value you want in a cell of a spreadsheet.

Why would a government go for anything less?

Well spoken. It's laughable that people still don't seem to fathom this. In /r/buttcoin, one of the primary arguments that Bitcoin will fail is that "ultimately banks will just launch their own cryptocurrency and back that one" as if that makes any sense.

Lol, they don't even understand basic principles. Even if banks can do intrabank clearing with a blockchain, that doesn't equal a currency, much less a worldwide currency. You need mass decentralization for that to occur.

is this good or bad for bitcoin? i'm not really sure.

It just doesn't make any sense, fiat has already existed mostly in digital form for years, and what they say they will create is definitely not Bitcoin-like. Ignore it, it's just noise.

Definite good. Introduces population to digital currency. Said currency collapses. Bitcoin benefits.

maybe it's a 100% premine  ;) like nxt...

If it collapses, they will also loose their trust in crypto at all, so bitcoin will suffer to. if normal currency crashes: super, but if a crypto currency crashes: bad for bitcoin too

not their own btc
it is their own ripple.

Anything that gets more people into cryptocurrency should be good for bitcoin in the medium-to-long term because it's increasing the number of people open to using bitcoin. These regional competitors are unlikely to take market share away from bitcoin due to network effects. Bigger pie, same percentage slice for bitcoin.

Only reason Ecuador is planning on doing this is because they just cant head over to the printers and start printing bills to pay for their government costs. Basically they are freaking out about money, and in order to stay in power need to keep giving welfare away to keep their office and see this as a simple way out.

I would say, watch out for Payza.

Do you remember when Paypal was new? At that time eGold was the big ecurrency. As Paypal was growing, they messed with a lot of eGold people's funds, and a lot of eGold people never got their funds back.

Something like the Paypal thing happened with Payza. I don't know if anybody lost funds at the time that Payza changed its name from Alertpay to Payza, but there certainly were some rumblings. Then, a little while back, Payza caused a lot of U.S. people to lose funds, by not alerting them about the handwriting that was on the wall, and warning their U.S. account holders that trouble might be coming.

According to Payza's own statements, they were doing U.S. transactions after their financing company in the U.S. had told them they were cutting them off. The finance company gave Payza time to wind down old transactions, but Payza kept right on transacting new transactions. Some U.S. people lost funds through Payza's non-conformance with their U.S. financer, to stop making new transactions and to finish up the old ones.

Did U.S. people lose their funds because of bad intent on the part of Payza? Who can tell for sure? But it was at least lack of good judgment on Payza's part. They knew for at least weeks (maybe months) ahead that their U.S. finance company was cutting them off, and they didn't warn U.S. customers or stop the new transactions that they made.

I'd say, watch out for Payza, especially if you are in the U.S.

:)

Yes, I thought something like premined cryptocoin could be used as official government cryptocoin. Obviously at start government owns all coins so they can slowly sell and release more and more coins for people to use.

Do they have someone who know enough to secure the blockchain and choosing the right type of algorithm?

This could work and set up as an example for upcoming Nation like crypto coin or end up as Aurora coin version II.

They could just exchange the crypto coins for their local currency at a fixed rate, and say that the local fiat currency will no longer be accepted after "x" date. This is how the Euro was distributed.

It would be hilarious if they posted an [ANN] thread on the altcoin announcements board and was met with the usual accusations of "SCAM!" and "PREMINE!". ;D


a.k.a. the Dogecoin effect.

I could actually see a country starting its own centralized version of a true cryptocurrency, if for nothing else but to be able to track everyone's spending. Force people to use only 1 public address and then you can monitor all money movements, find out who the organized crime is and their partners, find "terrorists" etc etc.

I'm definitely not in favor of this, but I can imagine it occurring. Hopefully they will all dump it ASAP for Bitcoins, but IDK who'd buy that crap.

It is government and authorities dream come true to have centralized digital currency. Imagine the possibilities of tracking every bit of money flow. I don't really know if that is the way it suppose to be...

What's sad is that what would fix their money woes is to manage money better. Free trade agreements, banking privacy, the ability to buy and sell more freely, foreign ownership, a better workforce (education, health), regional military cooperation to lower the cost of defense, balanced budgets ....

Some things in the modern world, like healthcare, education, seem to get more and more expensive. Some other things are essential - food, clothing, shelter, medicine ... and to have a country encourage good supplies of those things without subsidizing them takes a little finesse.
Nah, let's roll out Ecuadorcoin, what could go wrong?

They're gonna get 51%ed so hard  ;)

Hopefully everyone is able to mine it and not just the government...

i dont see how this is going to work. how will they recreate the network and mining bitcoin has. they are going to create a small ecosystem that will be vulnerable.

First thought: "Don't drag Bitcoin into this" - it sounds like this is some bound-to-fail altcoin and people will associate it with Bitcoin, coz people.

AFAIK Ecuador does not have local currency, they uses bucks. why not support bitcoin, rather than inventing yet another bicycle?..
russian cetral bank is in process of creating electronic payment processor as alternative for visa/mc now and my guess is all these activities are on political grounds as well as BRICS bank.
it may be also the preparation of backup plan for overheated dollar.

hmmmm i cant see how this would work dude. maybe in 20 years somehow... (google: mintchip)

The Ecuador government could implement a similar deadline as the EU did with the various local currencies. It could mandate that their citizens start to use their crypto coin starting on a certain date. Citizens could have a grace period as to when both the US dollar and their currency would be accepted.

With all that being said, IMO this is very unlikely because the dollar is accepted almost anywhere in the world and has a much more stable value then bitcoin does.