Bitcoin Forum

Starting from a topic started by Ratimov: Why has bitcoin adoption failed in El Salvador? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5396392.0) so my inspiration to start this thread suddenly appeared where right now i really am would like to know what you think and expect if your country decides to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender.

We all know that El Salvador boldly announced to the world that they adopted bitcoin as a currency as well as legal tender. Many of us agree that this is an expected development, but in the end we can learn from the country ^{[El Salvador]} that to achieve successful adoption, the country and its government must also have a good approach and take the right steps. It is clear that this approach will have an impact on the success of the adoption, but so far El Salvador has failed with the adoption because their approach is not as perfect as expected based on the research.

Well, if El Salvador is considered to have failed with its bitcoin adoption so far ^{[perhaps they have never failed 100%]} then what do you expect if one day your country also decides to adopt bitcoin as a currency and legal tender especially regarding the approach and steps your government should take?

It is important to understand what Bitcoin is and what is the point of Bitcoin. At this point in time, El Salvador is treating Bitcoin as nothing more than a quick get-rich scheme by publicizing what they're doing with it at every single opportunity that they get. Obviously, most people aren't buying it and rightfully so. Bitcoin shouldn't be treated as a precious asset for hodling and not for spending.

I think the whole point of mass adoption is obviously not just about the government recognizing Bitcoin as a legal tender and for their own reserves. It is important to encourage businesses to adopt it as an alternative payment and adopt sustainable practices over the long term. It cannot be a distraction from the issues that the country is facing. Adopting Bitcoin while fulfilling an alternative agenda is just a farce in general.

Well for the starters, I need to introduce it slowly, which means there wouldn't be sudden changes that people cannot comprehend at the same time I do expect them to not take loans on end for it because the banks are not going to blame their indecisive nature they are going to blame the bitcoins.
One thing is clear that they need to educate people calmly over it since it's not a very easy thing to understand for people who are old and quite young. The bitcoin atms should charge adequately which means they shouldn't overcharge as compared to the wallets that we use and at the same time they don't have to be distributed just around the center, it would be wise if they were around the whole country and easily accessible.

Honestly I don't think the legalization of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador is failed, because it's the first country and not all people will accept Bitcoin. It will cause a problem especially for old people or retirements, but AFAIK El Salvador doesn't force anyone to receive their paycheck with Bitcoin, they're free to choose to receive fiat or Bitcoin. I feel the protesters have such personal hate against Bitcoin itself.

Reducing Bitcoin Transactions in El Salvador (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5397203.msg60038951#msg60038951) based on this thread, Bitcoin usage in El Salvador are around 20% which is quite high IMO.

If my country will accept Bitcoin as legal tender, I wouldn't use Bitcoin as daily payment since it has better purpose for store of value, so there's not much change for me.

You have to consider what El Salvador is as a country and what they're doing with Bitcoin. El Salvador is a developing country, rampant with poverty (coincidentally as high as that of the adoption rates as you've mentioned). What Bukele has done is essentially gambled with the country's money, which for a country that is so reliant on development aid, is quite a poorly calculated choice to say the least. The country's reserve is especially important because they are essentially the country's worth.

There is nothing wrong with accepting Bitcoin, and there are bound to be people unhappy with this. However, if you see large-scaled protests for something as insignificant as this, something is wrong. Purchasing Bitcoin while doing nothing to address the country's pertinent issues and just tweets about Bitcoin seems quite counter-productive, don't you think?

IMO, the approach might be failed but the adoption was been helped by Bitcoin that have given awareness to the people.
It might be expected that there's always a regulation in every country under each jurisdiction, though they have their own wallet called "Chivo" but due to awareness and being knowledgeable, people can still use non-custodial wallets for storing their Bitcoin.

Maybe our government still studying Bitcoin adoption but fortunately, they recognized it as an alternative way of payment or alternative to our local currency.  If one day it will happen that they will announce Bitcoin legal tender, IMO, I'm expecting that they will also create their own wallet the same as El Salvador did.  

I don't care what will my government decide, unless that incentivizes the merchants. I'm fine by my real life transactions. What I want is to be able to pay with bitcoin online, in more stores. If that's going to happen with a legal tender law, then so be it.

I agree with this. Bukele should not prioritize bitcoin, but generally speaking, it isn't necessarily bad for a country to make investments. It depends on their needs, expenses and the size of the investment.

Countries do make investments, through their sovereign holdings. My point here is not about Bitcoin as a bad investment, it can be a good investment. However, if you notice for any funds that the government holds, they are accountable for it and generally they do have a certain risk allocation to the percentage of funds that they're willing to risk.

I don't think that any governments should be refraining from Bitcoin as an investment but having such a high asset allocation into a risky investment vehicle (such as that of crypto) is not indicative of good governance.

Perhaps it is not surprising why in the end El Salvador was judged to have failed with bitcoin adoption so far because in my opinion they are not completely focused on adoption but may be divided on private and group interests in government. From the very beginning the pros and cons about adoption are the reason why we can think that there is a problem they have to solve regarding adoption and maybe now it is starting to come to the surface after there is research on their adoption success.

If my country adopts bitcoin, I'm grateful because it's a great start to something different about the financial system. I don't want my country on behalf of anyone to invest heavily in bitcoin if at the same time they neglect other things like infrastructure development, job creation and economic improvement of the country in various sectors. They have to do something different from El Salvador although I hope in the future there will be special wallets promoted by countries like Chivo in El Salvador if adoption does happen.

Since a country has a heterogenous population and different people have different age and different education levels. The first thing I will expect from my country if it adopts bitcoin is that government will educate the population for the bitcoin. Its value, its investment and its uses. I also expect my government to put requisite infrastructure in place for transaction of bitcoin

So I am not gonna way in on personally my country, but I would say that what makes adoption have more of a chance to succeede is how few interventions it has to have on it's economy before it. What I am going at is that if a country has a lot of economic distress, social priblems and huge wealth gaps (poor countrys in general / developing countrys) will likely fail with the adoption because it will not cure the underlying issues. The better the economy of a country, themore chance it has of making it happen.

If my country will start to accept bitcoin and make it a legal tender, then they should create educational moves that will provide good education for all the people about bitcoin, its advantages and disadvantages, its proper usage, prior to making it as a legal tender. And of course, its not only the country's leaders who will decide on it, but the whole government should be given consideration too. I guess this is one thing that El Salvador has not been given priority, the permission of the people because they are only after of the revenue and profits that they can make, not on the underlying risk that they have to take especially when majority of the people do not approve it.

They do really lack on educating their citizens and thats not a surprise on why they do really have those opposition and they should have listened at least on what are those complaints.Explaining overall not only

focusing on investment or revenue matter will surely open up their eyes at least and accept on what its like not on the time that the market is really on deep reds or bearish.

They havent failed though but they do lack on giving out some education into their vicinity in related on different aspects.

It should start a mania in our country if that happens to be declared as a legal tender. The hype is for real if it's happening in our country just like what has happened with the Axie craze. So, just like what other thinks about bitcoin, it would probably be the same taboo that it's a quick rich investment asset that everyone would be in. But it's better to educate the underlying technology and economics that it has. Well, so far our country has became open to digital transactions and assets and it's about to be regulated since a lot of attention has been made for the past years.

There is no point in accepting bitcoin and making a ridiculous fee of 30% like what happened in India, i prefer to keep buying and selling bitcoin in p2p than paying 30% tax for my transactions lol, if they want to accept bitcoin they must do it properly

Not regulating cryptocurrency will probably better until its widespread adoption happen in the local level where even the street vendors are accepting BTC. I think its just how it should be so that innovations will not be suppressed and then when perhaps more wallets for digital payments will compete, that's the time government will try to regulate.

Its a bit too early to see government are already trying to get taxes from Axie gamers who are cashing out SPL. Whenever they try this, all others who are trying to develop games are now thinking of not releasing on other countries.

Adoption must be increased by engagement from many components within one society

• Governments: legal tender, adoption booster at national scale
• Commercial business: it takes time for traditional commercial companies/ corporations to build up their infrastructures and switch from completely fiat-based payment systems to crypto-based systems. They must to build up infrastructures for hybrid phase first. Bigger adoption for crypto will come later and it requires time.
• Individually adoption: it can be a very first adoption, even before governmental or commercial ones but eventually it will play a role as ending point of massive adoption

What is lack of in El Salvador is individual adoption and commercial adoption. It is interesting to see how local citizens and companies there will increase it with time.

It cannot be successful without first paving the way for its adoption not just as a currency but a legal tender. Declaring Bitcoin as a legal tender shouldn't come as a surprise to the people. We all know that Bitcoin is not that well known and well understood to everybody. So before getting them involved with it, everybody should be made familiar with it. So I expect my government to spend a good deal of time and effort for Bitcoin education and awareness to the whole country before the final declaration is made and the law implemented.

This is not going to be a quick process. The information dissemination and awareness campaign will have different approaches depending on the audience. For example the business sector will be lectured separately from the ordinary citizens. On the side of the government there will also be a different focus especially in relation to taxation and economy.

like you said that in my opinion elsavador not 100% of success adopting bitcoin.  but this still become breakthrough.

just opinion that government no need adopt and using as currency in a country. they only need bitcoin or other form of it to be available to trade and not banning it this might the first step

second they start taxing the crypto trader and exchange so the country itself can earn money from it

and third they start using crypto tech to run whetever using as CBDC like china did or using other form of crypto to settle the transaction like VISA did or using other for vote the government put medical or anything

this might not smooth but still make sense

You are making a mistake by thinking that world governments actually listen to their people. Most of them don't due to their own ulterior motives which is what leads to all the rallies, protests etc around the world.

Same applies to BTC adoption obviously. If my government were to suddenly announce that they were adopting BTC, I would have low expectations for various reasons.

I don't think they would focus on educating people about BTC and would most probably follow in El Salvador's footsteps. However, this decision would improve BTC adoption which is the silver lining.

I don't know much about El Salvador economy but is the amount of bitcoin they have really considered high allocation? Last I checked it was about $70 million worth of bitcoin and most of it was bought around $30k so they don't seem to have really lost money either.
I actually think this was a good move. Bought in some of the dips and they are going to hold it as a valuable asset. We all know how bitcoin's long term appreciation is and risking $100 mil on it could be a good investment.

Not really. I think that the bulk of it was actually bought at 50-60K or so. They've actually lost quite a substantial amount of money, despite their recent trades during the dip which did little, if at all to help their current standing.

Considering the aid and the current state of the economy in El Salvador, the costs for investing into Bitcoin, including the volcano(?) bonds has resulted in a largely negative impact on their economy, at a macro scale. Investments should either be safe, and generate sustainable income or for it to have the potential to be continuing to generate incoming in the future. $70Million might not be a lot in the perspective of those countries but if you consider that the possibility of losing it all and the fact that the money could've better improved their infrastructure, it'll be clear whether the investment was bad or not.

I really don't think that adoption mostly as a legal tender will be or will confirm that Bitcoin is the thing. Quite frankly I think we are still overlooking this Bitcoin being a legal tender thing cos I don't think there is any major media outlet that has not spoken about Bitcoin once in the broadcast and if Bitcoin was not what it is, why so much talk about it? 
Secondly, I don't think my Government will consider this in the nearest future so I am just going to leave that alone but I believe if there are places to spend Bitcoin online or some nearby merchants that is fine, others will catch up when they see the need to Including Governments too, but now I am not stressed.

Yes I think I remember reading that both Saylor and Bekele are even at just below $30k,,, they did manage to buy lower than that but because they are DCA like me they bought also closer to ATH. I would say excellent choice made as this is just the bear and they are stocking it up anyway,,, ATH return is doubling it.

Only I do not know why Salvadorian president keeps tweeting he bought more BTC in a vain attempt to influence price.

1.I don't expect my country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender.
2.I don't expect my country to waste any money on some kind of Bitcoin promotion or educating the people about the benefits of Bitcoin.
I don't think that this would happen in any country around the world(there might be some exceptions in the underdeveloped world, but they don't matter).
The governments would never waste any resources to teach the people how to use a payment system, over which the government doesn't have any control whatsoever. On the other hand, the CBDCs will definitely be promoted and I'm sure that their promotion will be successful among the ""average Joe" conformists.
We, as a community should NOT expect any help from the "powers that be"-the governments and the central banks.

More likely they will impose some taxes for both traders and owners of the exchanges so I prefer not to have them not regulate the bitcoins right now I'll wait until there will be lots of countries that already regulate it. I'm total with it right now. The way it is right now is something you cannot have any reason to stop unlike in the other countries where you force to pay heavy taxes which will hurt the little investors like us that only rely on a small income in the crypto industry.

Depends what you mean by adoption. In Finland it's traded a lot already, although trading and using it in anywhere is hard as everything basically costs 1.4 times more as you need to withdraw that much in order to have money for taxes when you are using it.

I really don't see adoption as a thing if you are referring to Adoption in terms of being a Government legal tender. Let them just allow for trading/investment like it has always been and those that want to accept it for payments can do so because the Government of my Country as I know them, will be the worst with laws and regulations if they were to adopt Bitcoin. 

On the other hand, what kind of approach did the government take when bitcoin was legalized? Because basically it has a lot of importance. And if government policies burden adopters who tend to take away financial freedom (against decentralized systems), then I think twice about including bitcoin in my business finance list.

maybe what i wanna have my government when bitcoin was adopted ? maybe to let everyone has their wallet with privacy , I mean don't put strict rules towards KYC but what i wanted from my government firstly ? that is to ask people first openly , not like what EL Salvador does that pushes the adoption directly , so with those everything will be tackled and will put completely announced .

permit me to say this that bitcoin adoption "have not fail in El-Savador" its adoption is barely one year now and nothing but development about bitcoin in El-Savador.


there will be freedom, privacy, trust, accuracy, reliability, decentralization, secured asset, profitable investment, reduced poverty and unemployment, lesser cross boarder transaction fee, growth and development of a country and there will be expression of joy from citizens.


they (government) should know that they can't regulate bitcoin, though task will be paid, its high time they realize that we can't confide trust in them anymore in our financial and economic lives, and all we are demanding is "freedom".

I don't know what miracles all those who ask questions about some kind of Bitcoin failed in El Salvador expected? Neither Bitcoin could or should have saved a country, nor could that country launch Bitcoin into some unrealistic mass adaptation. It is quite disappointing to see people who think that some very complex things can happen in just a few months, and realistically it takes years or even decades to do so.

Bitcoin does not necessarily have to be a legal tender in the way it is set up in El Salvador to work successfully. As far as I know, Bitcoin is not a legal tender in the Netherlands, but the city of Arnhem is literally called Bitcoin City (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2vrtAGlG1Y) due to the many shops, bars, and restaurants where you can pay with Bitcoin. Therefore, there is no need to wait for governments to declare a Bitcoin legal tender, nor is it realistic in most developed countries - the alternative should never become an obligation.

In case I am a president of a country and I am really in love with Bitcoin, then I would recognize Bitcoin more like a reserve currency and less as a currency that the people can use everyday for commerce. I will be promoting business that can be made with cryptocurrency and open up my country for mining and many related business connected with this expanding industry. This is because there is an extreme volatility in cryptocurrency and people may not love the roller-coaster ride of this currency...but definitely promoter this like a good investment opportunity option.

Maybe letting Businesses to operate accepting bitcoin without High taxation , because this will hurt people constantly and will deny the use of crypto since fiat and crypto has same taxation or even more.
at least it is tradable in Finland though there is no actual adoption?

In my country (Ukraine), Internet penetration is higher than in El Salvador, and a much higher rate of banked population. And among those who have bank cards, 87% view a smartphone as an alternative to physical cards for payments. Digitalization is a huge thing in my country, and we have many services that people access online, usually via smartphones. All this makes my country very different from El Salvador, so adoption is likely to go better here than there. Adoption of cryptos is currently underway, and allowing payments in BTC is a part of the government's long-term plan. I expect reasonable crypto income taxes, useful infrastructure, and then I can totally see a successful adoption.

It will be a little annoying when it comes to making bitcoin a legal payment because it is certain that there will be a bit of a shock caused by this because there will indeed be disputes in this matter which makes this a divisive one.
Bitcoin is still bitcoin and indeed he can be a means of payment but this will only be an option not as a core.

There's nothing wrong in trying they said but trust no innovative concept that was introduced or implemented that didn't have a flaw and I will advise you did your research when Bitcoin was created it also has some flaws which Theymos was among those that fixed it. Besides, he even once speaks about how Satoshi will contact him for help.

The point is that since El Salvador is the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender it's normal for everything not to be perfect and through their mistake, others will learn because they have acted as the bridge to link BTC legalization as legal tender. Besides, the legalization of Bitcoin is also something like Laszlo who bought 2 big pizzas with 10,000BTC because it will be remembered in the history of Bitcoin.

Having said that, the government of my adopt Bitcoin, what i expected is cryptocurrency taxation, regulation, and an increase in cryptocurrency users.

I think that it would not be entirely correct to expect much from the government. Bitcoin is often used as a tool for tax evasion, so I would not count on much.

I don't know much about the reasons behind the president and government of El Salvador adopting bitcoin other than what the public told ^{[save remittances].} Really if they thought that bitcoin was a get rich quick scheme then I think by now they have lost a lot due to the price drop, and if they did it for that reason then I think it will fail to meet any good results especially regarding adoption.

Still understandable, get rich quick scheme is an alternative agenda that I can understand from your opinion. Maybe true, this is a farce in general and they should focus more on implementing the functionality of bitcoin itself as a sustainable alternative means of payment.

Few years later we'll find the decision taken by El Salvador to be the best. There'll be people who take bitcoin adoption in the positive way as well as people considering it a threat to the economy.

I would like to connect this incident with the pizza buying. Just think, Laszlo bought two big pizza for a transaction of 10k bitcoins. If he haven't taken such a decision what will be the value of bitcoin by now. Now we appreciate what Laszlo have done. Same as that, after years we'll appreciate the decision of El Salvador. Maybe now they're suffering out of the market crash, but surely the country will progress out of bitcoin someday.

This question can have many answers depending on your aspect of view, for some people the most people including myself important thing about bitcoin adoption and regulation by the governments is the privacy of bitcoin investors because usually, the most important thing the governments want is to ask people for confirming their identity before each transaction also they want to know how many bitcoins their people have after that they can have plans for milking money and taking tax from the bitconers.

If my country is to adopt bitcoin as a currency and/or legal tender, from what I observed in El Salvador situation. I would advice that my country should first use a minimum of 1 year for sensitisation.
You must have to enlighten the masses, especially the uneducated who uses money to buy bread and butter from groceries and street shops. These are the real users of money. In the case of El Salvador, it was this group of people that staged protest against bitcoin because they were misinformed that bitcoin will be the only means of payment. Proper sensitisation would have evaded that incident.

Secondly, I will advice that my country should employ slow adoption. This can start by building a national exchange and make all civil servants create accounts and start recieving salaries with bitcoin, pay their tax in bitcoin.
From there you can start expanding to other sectors and gradually bitcoin will become part of the people.

If my country's government ever thought of adopting btc as a legal tender, I would expect them to start by education, they endeavor to educate the whole citizens about btc, the good, bad and the important aspect of it. Education and understanding are very important, if the citizens lack the basic and more technical knowledge about btc they won't be able to use and they will free to go back.
So government should first educate its citizens with full knowledge.
Deploy the btc as a legal tender gently bit by bit and give citizens the time to use it and make their own decisions base on it.

From my perspective government will fined it very difficult to adopt the system of cryptocurrency, and especially the country that fails to recognize cryptocurrency as a legal tender. I believe that before countries Will start making cryptocurrency proper adoption of currency thet most be collaboration that will give values from Bitcoin to fiat currency, because since Bitcoin has been created it's few countries that understand it validation and adopt its values.

There is a need to a right approach for bitcoin adoption in a country. El Salvador failed to used to right approach to it and hence the failure they encounter now.
El Salvador was in debt, the president still went further to increase government expenditure much higher, the deficit went from 3% to 8.19% and then to 9.20%. After Covid-19 many other country was seeing their deficit going down but he still pushes more spending. El Salvador might have seen bitcoin as a get rich scheme which is never so. The government shouldn’t have invested what can’t be afforded to be lost or from the country’s financial budget. If only they can get out of this dip currently without any effect on the country’s welfare can we say they’ve achieved their aim.

I personally think that if the country I live in is planning to adopt Bitcoin, the most important approach is the support of the entire community that really understands Bitcoin as a whole. In the first sense there must be some kind of learning that is commonplace where Bitcoin is used as a subject. It aims to find out the roots of how Bitcoin works.

This introduction process took a while, so seeing what El Salvador was doing was too hasty. Because there is an opposition that turns out to be a big enough role in the rejection. The conclusion is the approval of all elements of society as users who will later use Bitcoin. If support for Bitcoin adoption in a country is divided between pros and cons, it will be difficult to achieve the ideal Bitcoin adoption goal.

Everything should be planned or well organized and not really to be that hasty because it would really be resulting into not so effective in terms of recognition specially into its citizens.
SO whenever they do make out such decision in terms of adoption then it should really be spread evenly although there would be some opposition but its better that  citizens
are really that fully aware about its pro's and cons which would really neither be resulting into some good consideration or being ignored and stick into those
traditional  ways which we cant really able to tell.

I don't see a reason for any EU country to adopt bitcoin. They are all too scared to do it because this could potentially be seen as a weakness, an attempt to find other means of making money, a risky investment made by a country that desperately needs to make money. They will allow it to go on, but they won't officially adopt it.

Central banks see it only in black and white. Black - they adopt it and it and it fails costing them money and proving they were naive thinking it could help in any way. White - it becomes popular and undermines their fiat currency, weakening it and allowing people to use something the banks cannot control and make out of thin air. Both options suck for them.

Only weak countries that have no influence over their own economic situation have adopted it so far (no offense intended to any El Salvadoreans here). As it was, El Salvador had nothing to lose by adopting a secondary currency because their first currency was the US dollar - which left them at the whim of US government policy. Most competent governments, who pay their debts, have a central bank which seeks to control their own currency to benefit the national interest. They can print more if it is advantageous, or tighten the budget by trying to soak up excess cash if people are spending too frivolously. No country that has a choice will seek to allow it as an official currency, it pretty much a quirky experiment for the one country to do it so far and it hasn't served them much good.

Most advanced countries I think would only accept the existence of bitcoin and other alts. But making it as legal tender? I don't think that will happen. They are already doing great with the use of their local fiat and when they venture in bitcoin, which is a very volatile market, they would find it very challenging in their system. Aside from the fact that they have no full control of its circulation, which most governments are not in favor of.

But in any case my country will decide to have bitcoin as legal tender. I guess, they will find ways now how to tax their citizens who are into crypto. Wherein, a lot of crypto users in my country are still enjoying for not paying tax with their crypto earnings.

What I hope is that if the government legalizes bitcoin in my country, it should provide education to its people in detail about crypto, my country can be quite strange, they want taxes from crypto transactions, but they turn a blind eye to providing education to the public, in their brains they are only taxes from the people, without think about the gaps in society

People only think what El Salvador did is a failure because their government introduced a centralized wallet but for me it wasn't a big deal at all because its only just a wallet and I think people on their country is not forced to use that wallet. If we think about, we also have centralized exchange and people are in fact loving it over decentralized exchange.

Anyway, if ever my country have adopted btc the way el salvador did, then that's nice. I can now finally spend my bitcoin directly anywhere I like. I expect that a bitcoin city is also going to be made and then we will be seeing bitcoin atm's around, and maybe more optimization and innovation related to btc's are going to come.

The main thing I would like to get is adequate taxes and the ability to keep my money in the form of bitcoins in a safe account. For me, this would be the best option.

what many forget is that there are TWO economic plans...

the government investing in bitcoin is not a short term thing. they are not looking for a quick 'doubling' to then exit. the plan is to buy btc and hoard to hedge against the dollar on a 5-10 year strategy where the first few years is the buy up.
meaning no need to be checking the sell price of btc and value their hoard any time soon.
this means when the price goes down in the next few years, thats discount to buy more.. and is good for the country.
they are not valuing the hoard. they only see the price for opportunity to buy more
in short. you dont lose value on BTC unless you decide to sell at a loss.. no sell=no loss.
hoarding = dont look at the price for now. dont value you hoard at now prices if your not going to sell now.
...
the second economic plan is the citizen use of crypto/alternative to dollar.
this if educated well with the citizens could have gone a hell of alot better. aswell as having a good wallet/system in place without bugs/flaws to make citizens happy to use it.

the chivo wallet didnt give citizens 0.000588 btc upfront. instead it gave them a poorly designed wallet balance of $30 which could be converted to different things, by a poorly designed and under-educated system that had problems, via its altnet method of 'payments'

this citizen use of crypto economic plan is where the 'failure' happened. all because of many flaws in its inception, mainly due to the mis-understanding of what citizens were actually using and also integrating poorly made altnet that had its own flaws, bottlenecks and bad liquidity

this was not a 'bitcoin failed' scenario. it was a 'wallet/altnet failed' scenario, becasue citizens were not actually using btc on their own privkeys at the time.
in 2022 el salvador changed its wallet/payment method away from being related to the altnet (you know which one im talking about but i wont mention because it makes certain people cry when i mention it)

I think the Philippines government had shown its approach to Bitcoin adoption.  Philippines Banks welcome Bitcoin purchases, while the government also acknowledges Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.  Aside from that, the Philippines government is currently implementing regulations on crypto exchanges under BSP and possible taxation of the crypto asset is possibly under discussion.

El Salvador hasn't failed. Bitcoin adoption takes years, if not decades, to come to fruition. I don't understand why people believe it is reasonable to expect someone to give up fiat currencies, something they've depended on for ages, for a digital currency with technology they most likely do not understand. Education is the biggest hurdle once government bureaucracy has been surpassed.

Give it time before calling El Salvador's experimentation with Bitcoin a failure. Perhaps the bitcoin community could benefit greatly with patience.

It is unlikely that my country's government will adopt bitcoin and that makes me pessimistic. In fact, however, my country's government started targeting taxes from trading activity on every centralized exchange that has obtained their current license and is now coming into effect.

I firmly believe that in the next 10-20 years the government of my country will probably not adopt bitcoin as a legal tender, but if circumstances change then I expect bitcoin to only be used as an alternative not a major currency as there are many factors they have to take into account. Many citizens still don't know about the Internet and how to access the internet, this is the smallest issue that may need to be considered before adopting bitcoin.

Governments don't like privacy and they will try to find out who owns bitcoin if they start adopting it. Decentralization will become centralized when its holders deal with the government especially when they start using centralized exchange. You also have to report your tax obligations to the government if the government makes tax rules, it will more or less make your privacy open.

Can someone tell me about the Chivo wallet, is it also centralized as it is El Salvador's national bitcoin wallet?

This discussion has been an ongoing one for years now IIRC, because I've seen threads like this many times before.  I'm just not sure how any country could "adopt bitcoin", meaning make it their own currency--and their only form of currency. 

Why would any country even want to do that?  CBDCs make sense because a government could keep track of who's spending what and where, so it would severely cut down on tax cheats, extortion, money laundering, and a whole bunch of other financial crimes.  But if a country made bitcoin or any decentralized altcoin their legal form of money, that pseudo-anonymity that bitcoin provides would be just enough such that none of those problems would be solved.  Alleviated, perhaps, but not eliminated.

Then there's the question I have about government spending.  Is the government going to be using bitcoin as well?  If that were true, it would be a security nightmare, because then everyone in the world would be able to see what the government is spending their money on.  And I'm sure there are about 1000 more dilemmas just like that which I haven't thought of that would preclude a decentralized crypto from being any country's sole currency.

We are also talking about multiple sizes when we are talking about these nations. So for example, El Salvador may not have a huge income and investment chance, hence why it may look like "failed", which is something that bitcoin haters wants you to think, they invested only like a year ago, maybe not even that long ago, what happened to "long term investment"? Maybe they will benefit from this immensely in 10 years? Who knows?

This is why we should be considering this not as a failure yet. However, even if we do, my nation could make this much purchase per month, and that shows you how different nations could approach differently and could have different results.

when my government accepts bitcoin and supports it as a payment alternative, then that's enough for me. after all, the bitcoin movement happened because people were enthusiastic about it. oh one thing I might want, maybe the government can also provide support regarding learning to use crypto, especially bitcoin in existing communities. by providing sufficient education, it is possible that bitcoin adoption will increase in my city or country.
Actually, there is currently no resistance regarding the use of crypto in my country, the important thing is that it is not used as a legal payment alternative. only, so far very few understand about crypto, and also only used as a place of investment.

I am very positive about my country adopting Bitcoin as one of the means of payment of goods and services. First thing we need to understand is that Bitcoin is volatile, the price can move to any direct within a space of seconds and could cause a big lose or gain to an holder. Once this concept is understood, then I will need to create a medium to learn about Bitcoin and Crypto in general.

I suspect, to get advantage? I don't know, speaking from a government's perspective. Definitely a CBDC makes much more sense.

Yet, there's still money laundering, tax cheats and extortion with using fiat currency electronically currently (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=money%20laundering%20bank&sort=byPopularity&type=story). Not sure what would change with a CBDC, or in what percentage. One thing's sure; with a CBDC, there would be a massive upgrade to mass surveillance.

Which sounds like... The way things should be? National budget is a public document, for everyone to see. Governments post this to their official site anyways, usaspending.gov (https://www.usaspending.gov/), ukpublicspending.co.uk (https://ukpublicspending.co.uk/), european-union.europa.eu (https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/budget/spending_en) etc.

Success rate doesn't really depend on bitcoin performance but the strength of financial policy in the country. Yes if El Salvador has made bitcoin legal and looks like it is kicking the foot on the grand, the subsisting financial orientation is to look at. The government of El Salvador seem to me a tasting ground for all other countries that will go that way in future.

There's a reason why my country's government won't adopt bitcoin because CBDC is by far the thing that has been thought about in the past year. I think CBDC makes more sense for the government to control users nationally, it would be difficult with decentralized bitcoin.

So there is little hope for me to hear the government will adopt bitcoin as a payment alternative. But if it does, then I would definitely love to hear about it.

The problem with El Salvador before is that their decision to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender was made all of a sudden. And then it took only months i think that they finally declare bitcoin to be their new legal currency. So the people have been in pressure adjusting on learning bitcoin, its usage and how to transact bitcoin in their daily living, considering some people are illiterate and do not even have access on smart phones. Not surprising why some people ended up having strikes. So i think the very first thing to do that a government should do is to spread awareness by making all the citizens educated on bitcoin. Once good education is set up, then people will certainly understand the whole purpose of bitcoin and how it can be very useful for the success of the whole country.

+5merits This is topnotch. First time seeing a reputable member of this forum addressing a bitcoin related issue squarely without mixing words. I said it that even if I am made the president of my country today, I will not hastily make bitcoin a legal tender in my country. The best I will do for bitcoin is to remove whatever laws that is restricting its usage in the country. I will allow it to co-exist with fiat thereby giving the people the opportunity to choose which currency they want to use at a particular time, this is the true definition of bitcoin (liberty).

Government is about laws and law enforcement. There is no way a country will adopt what it doesn't control as a legal tender (maybe only) that it will not backlash. How will the government manage taxation? Maybe ask all the citizens to submit their private keys(which cannot happen). How will the government manage crisis instigated and sponsored with bitcoin.

There is no doubt that I love bitcoin, but let's not hope for much in this short time if we are truly sure bitcoin will be here in 100yrs time. Maybe by then everything will play out naturally. For now governments are good with CBDCs and  I also wish they stop hitting hard on bitcoin by raising series of lies to discredit bitcoin. 
In Satoshi's whitepaper of bitcoin, I didn't see where he said that bitcoin will battle and eventually kill fiat, rather it will provide an alternative means of transaction. I love bitcoin that way, and let the countries maintain their fiat which only is not a legal tender, but a national identifier.

making btc A legal tender is different than making it THE ONLY legal tender

btc does not need to replace fiat. it can be A legal tender BESIDE fiat as another legal tender.

EG shops accept both dollar and btc, rather than just one option

It could be basically letting crypto be something that people could use in regular purchases and all of that? I mean it is not really a clear thing what we are talking about here, but we could handle all of this regularly if we just got it as legal tender usually. Of course it is not going to be a simple thing, of course legal tender is the top version and it is going to be nothing easy to get there for most major nations.

However, if we are just allowed to accept bitcoin and pay bitcoin without any law problems, and get adoption rate increased by tax regulations being a bit more lax, even that alone would be amazing, people would turn to crypto to pay less taxes.

In general, given the current realities of the world, I doubt that the state should be trusted with its funds at all. You need to understand how it can end up in the end.

I have the same thoughts on how the government is taking the approach to bitcoin adoption to great success. To be honest, bitcoin is not mandatory for everyone because only people who know and understand it will really want to own and use it.

It is realistic to think that bitcoin is not a mandatory currency that every country should adopt, but bitcoin is great to be considered as an alternative currency that has quite a lot of innovations and benefits. In any case, given the government's desire to own crypto of its own through the CBDC, bitcoin might be a bit sidelined in their plans.

You obviously live in a country that has its own fiat currency. El Salvador did not.
It also wasn't a hasty decision.

That is the same thing they did in El Salvador. They didn't force people to only use bitcoin but they removed any restrictions that may have existed and paved the way for bitcoin adoption so that anybody who wanted could get paid in or pay others using bitcoin.
They still continue using another country's fiat as their currency! like before but also recognize bitcoin as a legitimate currency.

If that is indeed what is being done in El Salvador, they really have the freedom to use bitcoins in full even though they can still use their own currency.
If only in ASIA also applies in such a way of course, bitcoin users are increasing again and bitcoin's growth is increasingly being recognized by many people.

The part that caught my attention is this last paragraph which seems to contain everything in regards to the advantages and the disadvantages of Bitcoin adoption and the CBDC adoption by the government, there is a wide range of different opinions and approaches that can be worked on to achieve a lot in the quest to marry government to the blockchain form of money Bitcoin/CBDC.
First, if the government spending becomes verifiable through the blockchain that will give room for transparency in government fiscal policies, and also reduce money laundering since all government transactions can easily get verified using the public ledgers instead of the current money laundering fist we have with the fiat centralized system were government officials easily print money just to pad up the laundering scheme, Not many will want to use Bitcoin for the daily transaction even me will not want to do that since Bitcoin is more valuable as a store of value, but in some instances, one will want to be able to carry out Bitcoin transaction without any fear of being criminalized by the government so Bitcoin legalization is still much important to both the government and it citizens.
Set back on bitcoin adoption from government perspective
Except for El Salvador which took the bull by the horns to ride on the wings of decentralized digital currency Bitcoin, most others are with the fear of the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and its volatile nature, this is why many of them will rather develop their own central bank digital currencies that will be a peg to the value of their national currency.
Why some view El Salvador Bitcoin adoption as a failed attempt
I don't know the tools used for the analysis of the data that was used to carry out the last survey, but to some extent, I have a divergent viewpoint on the result of that research.
1: for a proper outcome of any project the time frame should be at least one year and since the El Salvador Bitcoin legal tender project started on 21st October the official date the survey was quick to draw a conclusion and the question is how can the survey give a short time conclusion to a long term goal such as currency inclusion. That looks unprofessional to me.

Developed countries are all focusing and issuing their CBCD coins in the future instead of accepting bitcoin. I am not negative but my view is that only poor, small, weak economies are more inclined to accept bitcoin than developed countries.

The government has controlled us for centuries and they will continue to do so they will never accept any force that can threaten their power, bitcoin is really a cool technology but simply because it's decentralized i wouldn't be too optimistic about governments adopting it.

First of all they need to do official agreement with all the all exchangers formed throughout countries and globe for proper circulation of monetary funds. However, they should do so without interfering with the crypto currency’s pseudo anonymous nature and free will to use it. What I mean is, they should have proper taxation but not at extreme levels like India did with their financial bill (they levy 30%) but nominal so that users can fairly use it and at the same time Government will also get income source. Secondly, they should have proper infra structure too. For example setting up government approved Bitcoin ATM, physical presence should be attracted by giving permission to use bitcoin payment processors too.

But at least we are asked for what we wanted to expect , since we are all far from total adoption so countries after countries will be having their own interpretation and stand about crypto but at least share our prayers and wishes from our government.

I agree with you, because bitcoin don't need to replace fiat before it can become a legal tender in a country. It will be a legal tender beside fiat so that it will be very easy for fiat users and bitcoin users to exchange their goods and services in the country. I think, it will be difficult for any country to make bitcoin only legal tender in the country because it will be difficult for those who don't have any ideal on digital currency to cope with the decision in the land.

I think a lot of countries' governments are already looking into it, not just the cryptocurrency alone but the Blockchain technology. Some countries are showing interest in bitcoin by stating they will be starting or investigating bitcoin if it will bring some effect to the government. Though here in our country, I just read that they are starting to learn about Blockchain technology and Web3 for technological purposes, which is good news for us.

In my country the government has not legalized bitcoin but crypto transaction applications have been shown on television, digital currency is no stranger to the public's ears and many have even invested in crypto, is this a sign that the government will legalize digital currency in the future?

The changes, or at least the "little" differences between the nations that accept bitcoin will be the biggest deal. For example, my nation sees it as a currency, so it is kind of like dollar, euro, foreign currency. Some other nation sees it as an asset, like gold or a stock. These changes will definitely be seen as a deal in the long run that can make a big difference and if one of them looks to be great then people will realize how good it is and other governments could replicate that. Legal Tender is another, if that works out amazing for El Salvador in the long run, I can see it becoming a huge deal for all the other smaller nations as well.

In most countries this is the legal status of cryptocurrency. The governments never take a stand on legality, but opposes usage as well as create plans of developing its own CBDC. Even in my country this is the same, the government haven't mentioned anything official on the legality. It is possible to see more and more applications being advertised on television, and when checked those applications they're registered on crypto friendly countries and operating all around.

There must be a country where they accept bitcoin but at the same time planning to have their own centralized cryptos like the cbcd. This is only good for the people that like centralization and don't have a trust in bitcoin. This is why not all government and bank thinks that btc is a big threat to them because they know that many people are not comfortable on those currencies.

It's up to us if we people will go on with the flow and let the government control us but nowadays it is now possible to be free and become independent on your own. Thanks to Satoshi Nakamoto for introducing a wonderful invention or technology called bitcoin.

Whether they would create their own cbdc or would just let bitcoin to be legalized into their vicinity but we know on whats the treatment of government when it comes to decentralized things,arent we?

Of course they would really be trying out to counter or making out other options which people would still stick out despite of bitcoins existence where people do really like to deal into something secure
without even realizing about the decentralization and anonymous benefits of bitcoin.
Only to those people who do value up much those qualities will surely appreciate bitcoins acceptance or adoption and not to those people who are just sticking
on what government do offers them.

I think one thing the government should do first is to make the citizens more educated about bitcoin as well as the cryptocurrencies itself. Once they know about it, then they can help the government to assess whether it could be helpful to improve the government or not. Otherwise, there will be strikes that will possibly happen from those people who will oppose the decision of the government. So i think the decision is not only for those officials sitting in the government but the concern of the citizens should be given the top priority to be heard.

Make them at least aware so that support would come next in line because if they dont then just like been said above by some user that it would be ignored.As long they wont really be making it as a legal tender then people wont really get shocked and if they do allow or make it legal on any transactions then that would really create some curiosity and possible problems ahead.
It is really that great if government on your country would be ending up on having positive impressions towards crypto which is something not that really common and most of them are going against on it.

This should be the first step but with the rush to milk the cryptocurrency users, I think my government will impose regulation and taxation first before promoting any activities to educate its citizen.



I don't think there will be strikes if the government adopts Bitcoin.  It is just an addition to the existing payment method so there is no immediate effect on the current payment system.


It should be the priority concern but sadly Government always prioritized stuff that will give them a source of funds.

Knowing the nature of bitcoin and how it runs definitely is a big factor if any country wants to adopt it in the future. Extensive and in depth research must be done. Not just a research that's on the surface, but a research that will cover everything about bitcoin including the blockchain technology that it's built upon.

I don't think our government would really plan to adopt it anytime now or even in the future. But if ever it will happen, they must gather all their resources to check about every side of bitcoin. If they won't plan, organize, and strategize well enough, surely the same failure is expected to happen. The idea of promoting crypto and having its benefits is great. But it has to be done correctly. An active and determinitic approach should be done.

A far deeper research and planning is very important before making it work with the government in real-time. The technology is efficient and has its own advantages, but on real-time usability it have got issues as the market is linked to a country's economy. Being manipulative the market could be moved in any direction, so it is must to analyse all sides of bitcoin than just having an overview.

To my country there is no perfect plans of adopting bitcoin. Another thing, even if it's adopts there won't be much of impact as people are continuing to use it amidst the improper regulation and legality.

if government make bitcoin to be among of educational curriculum in the various college and universities, it will bring mass concern and relation to bitcoin. And if every one study the development and technology of bitcoin it will make it worth will be valueless, from what i notice. The massive adoption of bitcoin comes and government support it, the exchange of bitcoin for traditional currency will not be hard again.

The biggest problem of bitcoin, if we can call it this way, is that there is no reimbursement, no protection, so the government should really find a way to teach people how to properly use it, that's in my opinion would be the biggest challenge. Let's not forget that people still nowadays fall in email and phone scams, I can't even image what could happen and the kind of complaints that would arise. It's also a generational thing of course, millennials are way more used to technology than boomers, and of course gen Z was pretty much born with a smartphone in their hands, so... But yeah, going back to your original question first of all we need people to understand what they're doing, and I honestly doubt they'll ever do that because governments don't want to teach you financial education.

This is a pretty decent subject, as it's interesting to see the different opinions from people all over the glob.  Here in the United States I'm not sure I foresee them doing this anytime even remotely soon.  The United States dollar is the worlds reserve currency and I don't think they want to do anything to jeopardize that.  I can certainly foresee it being possible somewhere down the line, but not anytime in the near future , unfortunately. 

That's mostly the case that people's resorting into crypto as investments since crypto is not yet fully adopted as a legal tender. Even in my country, i don't see any big opposition about crypto, the government is still studying and discussing about it if it could bring changes into the country's economy. However, i believe that one key to be successful in crypto adoption is that the government should be able to provide sufficient education first to all the people and let them understand well how crypto can create positive changes in the country.

I'm of the opinion that if my government wants to adopt bitcoin they simply need to pass laws that allow:

1 - that every citizen of my country can use bitcoin as a currency and can invest in bitcoin

2 - that everywhere: stores, banks, public and private companies can accept to pay in bitcoin through a mutual agreement between companies and employees

3 - That my country's banks allow it to be possible to make loans in bitcoin, have a term account in bitcoin, pay life insurance, pay car insurance, pay health insurance in bitcoin

4 - that a license is granted for cryptocurrency exchanges and cryptocurrency-related casinos

5 - that the government allows the citizens of my country to pay: taxes, water bills, electricity bills and TV bills in bitcoin

in my opinion this is what is called mass adoption in a country. now to say that a country is taking money from the citizen to buy bitcoin at 44000$ and 3 months later the price of bitcoin drops to 29000$ and to call this a mass adoption I would say that this is something simply dangerous, I agree that it was something It's good that El Salvador has bitcoin laws, but I don't know how beneficial these laws are so I can't comment on this matter

I don't see why the government has to be the one that teaches you anything. The most that I expect is that they don't stay in the way and try to hinder the evolution of technology or attempt to limit my choices. If they can do that, it's enough. Information about Bitcoin and crypto is free, you just have to look for it. This forum is a university and a historical reference. So much has happened on these boards. Newer generations might prefer videos and YouTube and you can find plenty of quality content there as well. Andreas Antonopoulos is one of the go-to guys, but there are others.