El Salvador has become the first country to make #Bitcoin legal tender! 🇸🇻

[ARTURVHt]

Salvador has become a sign of the Bitcoin market. In the near future, there may be more and more people in the world who will use Bitcoin as the country’s legal tender. This is just the beginning, not the end.

[JayJuanGee]

@ JayJuanGee, I don't know from where you get the idea that I am supporting the shitcoins. I have always opposed the altcoins (with rare exceptions such as Cardano).

I was just responding to what you said, and I already responded to that (of course in this above post).

Here's what you had said..

If you add in the altcoins as well, then there is a good chance that the cryptocurrency market cap may even move past that of gold. Once again, such a scenario within the next 6-7 months is possible, but not probable.

But the reality is that there is a very large section of users who prefer these coins for a wide variety of reasons. Some of them think that coins such as Cardano and NEO represent more advanced technology and are therefore more suitable to resolve issues such as scalability and high transaction fee. Also, another large section believes that BTC has already plateaued and they will get better returns by investing in the alts. I don't agree with the second view. I still believe that in the long run, BTC will give much better returns when compared to the alts.

I was NOT trying to get caught up in a shitcoin discussion, I was mostly just attempting to respond to various points of your earlier post, and of course, the El Salvador law passage ONLY deals with bitcoin, but of course, shit coin pumpers are going to end up coming.  Surely, you have likely noticed that I am not very much into either talking about shitcoins or getting involved in them, but I have trouble anticipating a variety of scenarios that any government, such as El Salvador, might attempt to deal with some of the potential problems of the various shitcoins, and surely the shitcoin issue also goes much beyond the borders of El Salvador even if El Salvador is attempting to invite bitcoin in without dealing with the shitcoin matter, at least not in that legislation that has so far passed.

For most of the other points, I could somewhat agree with you. I could foresee an increase in the amount of hostility from the authorities, but as you have posted, now the community is mature enough to take care of these challenges to a great extent.

For sure we are going to have some interesting times with perhaps some jurisdictions, such as El Salvador becoming quite friendly and even inspiring copy cat jurisdictions, and we could also have some jurisdictions become hostile to bitcoin, so it will be interesting to see how some of those opposite approaches might play out, assuming that some opposing approaches continue to attempt implementation - even if in the longer run, there might develop some common standards - and surely the pro-bitcoin folks are going to want to have models like El Salvador, but even El Salvador is not in a vacuum, so they might have to both revisit their law or figure out some of the implementation challenges along the way, including figuring out how much support that they might have to provide for some businesses that are not currently technologically enabled to take bitcoin but might be able to get up and running with some assistance training and maybe even figuring out ways to afford devices that can process bitcoin/lightning payments.

[bakasabo]

I'm pretty much sure that we have El Salvador representatives on the forum. I'm very much interested to read Salvadorians experience about it.
How it influenced their every day expenses. Was it convenient to pay in Bitcoin. Was is simply easy to switch from national currency to BTC. I'm interested in everything, because they are the first and they experience this adoption first.

[DooMAD]

IMF sees legal, economic issues with El Salvador bitcoin move

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it has a number of economic and legal concerns regarding the move from El Salvador to make bitcoin a parallel legal tenders.

If it makes the world's biggest loan shark unhappy, then I like the news all the more, heh.

Something tells me it's more about self-preservation for them.  Imagine if nations do adopt a currency which the IMF are unable to control and it does have the effect of improving their respective economies (it's a big "if", but imagine it happened), that results in fewer countries relying on the IMF, reducing their overall influence on the world stage.  This is a potential threat to their vice-like grip on struggling countries if it proves successful.

[Obito]

~snip

as far as the news I read, indeed the government has submitted a bill to legalize bitcoin as a means of payment. if approved, then el salvador will be the first country to legalize bitcoin. and I think for internal problems as you describe of course the rules are a compulsion

That doesn't answer my question though, how will the impoverished population going to access bitcoin if they don't even have their own electronic devices since they can't afford it, next time try to answer what you're going to quote.

[Dhoe]

this is the best step taken by el salvador, this is also interesting news, what we have to wait for in the future, after el salvador legalizes bitcoin, maybe their economy will start to improve, if el salvador can make their economy improve because it legalizes bitcoin, I believe the country others are following in the footsteps of el salvador..

[KaliLinux]

I'm pretty much sure that we have El Salvador representatives on the forum. I'm very much interested to read Salvadorians experience about it.
How it influenced their every day expenses. Was it convenient to pay in Bitcoin. Was is simply easy to switch from national currency to BTC. I'm interested in everything, because they are the first and they experience this adoption first.

I guess we will have time to find out all the details about this soonest. This is a big move for Bitcoin and of cause, we might see some other countries following this path even though the IMF is having its concerns about the move and why won't they? Bitcoin was created to take us out of this people's chokehold but they don't want that to happen.

 El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele will be remembered in history for taking this brave move.

[raidarksword]

This news was the source of bitcoin to recover and that's really a good news to heard these kinds of news that will eventually be root of success on mass adoption just like what El Salvador did. With the legalization it will bring more countries to embrace bitcoin adoption and support it all the way.

[JayJuanGee]

If the bitcoin bill is passed and becomes El Salvador's legal tender, it will be a great progress in the cryptocurrency and bitcoin industry.

Starting from El Salvador, it gradually influences other countries and finally the whole world. This is an important part of social and human development.

How will hey address the issue of people not having access to bitcoin though, I am sure that not everyone have a phone or electronic device in their country and probably they have a really big population that are below or in the poverty line. It's important but the problem is if they take it too hasty, they will probably experience the effects which are opposite of what they are trying to do.

I decided to respond to this especially since you had decided to chide another member - see below for using your post as a springboard to say whatever that poster had wanted without addressing the concerns that you brought up in your post (see below).

Surely, I do not know too many of the on the ground facts either, but any of us should be able to speculate about such facts in such a way that does not end up arriving at a dire conclusion, unless all that you are wanting to achieve is the arrival at a dire conclusion by reading negativities into what seems to be a decently powerful, empowering and positive news.

My understanding is that there are around $7 million people in El Salvador, and let's assert that the place is so god damned poor that ONLY about 1/10 of its population has cell phones, and perhaps similar numbers for various kinds of internet access or wifi.

I would think that this is going to mean that the government is going to have to start to invest in the development of that kind of technology and create incentives for the building of the infrastructure and getting some kinds of electronic device into the hands of more people, including any businesses that might be selling goods and services.  If the situation is very dire in terms of lack of availability of such devices, then I would consider that the government is going to have to work its ass off in terms of trying to make this successful beyond merely 1/10 of the economy.  

I doubt that the on the ground situation is as dire as you seem to be presumptively making it out to be, Obito, even if it might take some work and perhaps many years to spread even the technological abilities, my understanding is that there has been a kind of bitcoin beach already present in El Salvador and certain levels of expansion of adoption of the Strike app... so the El Salvador President (Nayib Bukele) has already seen some "on-the-ground" possibilities based on already existing facts and technological possibilities.  I would think that Bukele has some ideas about the kind of technological expansion possibilities or would have made the bill a wee bit more whimpy in terms of saying that businesses need to accept bitcoin unless they technologically are not able to.. which is already pretty strong language to be suggesting in such bill if the situation on the ground in El Salvador were to be as barbarically lacking as you seem to be presuming in terms of your doom and gloom ideas about failure or costs of going forward with bitcoin as legal tender greater than benefits, blah blah blah.

~snip

as far as the news I read, indeed the government has submitted a bill to legalize bitcoin as a means of payment. if approved, then el salvador will be the first country to legalize bitcoin. and I think for internal problems as you describe of course the rules are a compulsion

That doesn't answer my question though, how will the impoverished population going to access bitcoin if they don't even have their own electronic devices since they can't afford it, next time try to answer what you're going to quote.

If we are in a public thread members can quote others for whatever reason that they like, or no reason at all... so sure it would be nice if members were responsive to the posts that they quote, but members are all over the place - especially newbies.. not trying to give any excuse to the newbie, but members are all over the place and sometimes do not have any clue about how to answer a speculative question, such as the one you presented, Obito.. in which you seem to be presuming facts and then wanting some other member to provide facts for your hypothetical.. and perhaps agree with your presumptive conclusion that this whole El Salvador bitcoin initiative is seemingly doomed to failure "cause da peeps there be too much poor ones.".. and maybe you are correct in the end, but seems like you are doing a lot of presuming and assuming too in your arrival at such a conclusion in such an early stage that we are ONLY one week into the announcement and only a few days into the bill passing (admittedly things seem to be moving pretty quickly there, but they also have 90 days from the publication of the bill - which presumably happened a few days ago - let's say June 8 - before the law goes into effect - let's say second week of September for the law to go into effect).

[Coin-1]

Wow! Very good news has arrived into the cryptocurrency world!

I just looked at the Wikipedia article on Republic of El Salvador. This country is not large and has a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of about $53 billion. El Salvador does not have its own national fiat currency. Its citizens have been using the US dollar since 2001. I also noticed that someone had already edited the Wikipedia page and mentioned BTC in the "Currency" field:

Currency:

• Bitcoin (BTC, XBT, since 2021)[9] [a]
• United States dollar (USD, since 2001)

According to the laws of El Salvador, this bill will enter into force on September 7, 2021. As far as I understand, the "legal tender" status now obliges all citizens to accept payments in BTC. This means the mass adoption of Bitcoin. This is really amazing!

[mindrust]

If any of you want to acquire an El Savador citizenship here are the key points:

Naturalization requires completion of an application of request that is supported by the requisite documents to establish eligibility. Basic requirements are that the applicant is at a minimum eighteen years old, has resided in El Salvador for a minimum of five years, declare their desire to be a Salvadoran and swear a loyalty oath, and confirm they have not been convicted of a crime or involved in criminal proceedings either domestically or abroad. They also may not be a citizen of a country at war with El Salvador. Determinations are made by the Ministry of Interior.[6] Those who are eligible for naturalization include:

• Persons who are nationals of Spain or Latin American countries, who have established a one year residency;[8]
• Foreigners from anywhere who have established a five year residence in the territory;[8]
• Foreigners who are married to Salvadoran spouses and have established a two year residency; or
• Persons who have rendered exceptional service to the nation. (Available only by legislative decree).[8]

Let's make El Salvador, El Bitcoinistan!

Viva le El Savadorré!

[iTradeChips]

I was actually a bit of surprised when I first hear of that news. That right now, as of this moment, one nation on this planet is now brave enough to declare bitcoin a legal tender in their country. Finally a nation will now be able to mobilize its resources in partnership with a cryptocurrency company so that it will make Bitcoin be used by more people in el salvador than before. I think this has tremendous effect in the coin as other countries and institutions might also think of adopting Bitcoin.

[Rizzrack]

Seems the guy has it all figured out !

Already working on a 95MW geothermal power plant fueled from the local volcano and building a BTC mining hub around it ! Big brain president !
If china sends miners away I'm pretty sure who is waiting around the corner to welcome them.


https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1402714926800674827

[gurunanakji777]

It is really a good start for bitcoin finally El Salvador president announced it to make BTC legal tender. I hope many other countries will follow sooner or later even many countries are allowing it to use BTC without any issue but still not legal tender. Everything needs to start from somewhere so this is the first step for the BTC hope we will see more countries will make it legal tender but it is not easy.

[Artemis3]

South America getting in is a pretty good move, although El Salvador is a small country, it will still make a difference for the market if the head of the government is the one that actively supports it.

Yeah I just hear the news too and this will certainly break the laws that other South American cities around the world follow and will lead the way for them to adopt towards use in their own countries.
I can see Venezuela being next.

Unless a true miracle occurs, we could be one of the last. Even Cuba has higher chances.

Bitcoin represents freedom, it means The State getting out of the way. This is the opposite of the current Venezuelan regime. They made their own coin (like a CBDC) precisely because they didn't trust Bitcoin (in fact any altcoin is precisely that, worse when made by the State).

The over-regulation and creation of more bureaucratic institutions made it hostile for the small miner. What El Salvador did is what we have asked all these years instead of making that garbage Petro they just had to adopt Bitcoin, but they didn't listen since it goes against all they "learned" about "economy" which is simply "command economy", and of course they can't make more bitcoins when they please. We have the worst fiat coin of the world for a reason: Those currently in power are against economic freedom, they just repeated all the mistakes of the now extinct socialist bloc and many more mistakes from history, Ie. Roman inflation and fixing of product prices by decree under penalty of death (which didn't stop the inflation and made it much worse).

And many of them see the "economy" like some sort pseudo-science, capitalist lies, blah blah, at least that's what they say in public.

And yet, it moves...


Thanks to El Salvador, I do hope some other countries get jealous from all the foreign investing moving there, but this is more likely in countries with more economic freedoms not the opposite. Venezuela is where it is due to the State intervention, when they go over-budget they simply add more zeroes to their State bank accounts, printing is not even done anymore and we were forced into a cashless society and hyperinflation, by the time most noticed it was too late.

Cuba has better chance because they have been doing far longer what Venezuela is doing, and are becoming ready to do the next move into a more open economy, perhaps like Vietnam or China, they could start with Bitcoin tourism or such. Even their communist party has had discussions about Bitcoin and their youth see it with interest.

Venezuela needs the dinosaurs to go, the old fashioned politicians currently in power that dreamed for decades do the "utopian" socialism like the now extinct East Germany, they keep saying they can manage what the rest of the world failed at...


Make no mistake, there is a "Salvador" effect in the world, its starting to reverberate in the region with some politicians from neighbor countries starting the discussion. Not so much for Bitcoin, but because NOW they see so much foreign investments heading there.

Oh yeah, El Salvador has geothermal sources of energy (aka volcanoes). Large miners can simply build their own "carbon neutral" power plants and the country would be happy to keep them afterwards in the future, even sell the excess energy to starved neighbors. Win/win of course.

[verita1]

Thanks to all who have left their valuable thoughts on this thread. It has been a very intense week. Although I am Latin American, I had heard from El Salvador about the problems that its population has had due to the lack of work caused by the civil war and that caused a large number of Salvadorans to immigrate to the United States.

It is worth refreshing the idea of: Why Bitcoin for El Salvador? This is an important article that makes us understand Bukele's plan that suddenly became known in all corners of the world. He is a President with fresh, innovative ideas and great charisma.

El Salvador's economy relies heavily on remittances, or money sent home from abroad, which make up around 20% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

More than two million Salvadorans live outside the country, but they continue to keep close ties to their place of birth, sending back more than $ 4bn (£ 2.9bn) each year.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57373058.amp

In this Reuters article we can see how Salvadorans are starting to place their "Pay here with bitcoin" banners.
Today is El Salvador, tomorrow it may be some of our countries.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-approves-first-law-bitcoin-legal-tender-2021-06-09/

[Reosta_]

El Salvador has become the first one and it seems like it won't be the last also. Some Latin American countries are also aiming the same thing and Mexico is one of them too. But IMF made a statement about its worries. It thinks that this action may cause harm to El Salvador's economy.

[bbc.reporter]

IMF sees legal, economic issues with El Salvador bitcoin move

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it has a number of economic and legal concerns regarding the move from El Salvador to make bitcoin a parallel legal tenders.

If it makes the world's biggest loan shark unhappy, then I like the news all the more, heh.

Something tells me it's more about self-preservation for them.  Imagine if nations do adopt a currency which the IMF are unable to control and it does have the effect of improving their respective economies (it's a big "if", but imagine it happened), that results in fewer countries relying on the IMF, reducing their overall influence on the world stage.  This is a potential threat to their vice-like grip on struggling countries if it proves successful.

Agreed. However, similar to what Carlton argued in the press subforum, there are people behind the IMF who has the political connections in government, military intelligence, and in business to topple regimes that do not bend to their will. This is more of a political movement that the movers are unaware of. I reckon Jack Mallers should begin hiring bodyguards and he should be careful of women suddenly inviting him to dates and parties hehehe.

[mindrust]

El Salvador has made history by doing this. And it triggered some other countries to do the same also which is really good news I think. I hope that the results of these actions can be positive in the future.

Triggered?

Are there any news which I am not aware of? Which countries exactly are considering doing the same thing? Do you have a source? If that's true, that is big news. In other words, big if true.

[UserU]

Triggered?

Are there any news which I am not aware of? Which countries exactly are considering doing the same thing? Do you have a source? If that's true, that is big news. In other words, big if true.

Well, they are speculated to be mainly American (South/ Central) territories according to this article.

It is understood that at least four more countries are now preparing paperwork that will set the wheels in motion to deliver the vote to their respective parliaments. And, according to global financial expert Paul Murillo, one of them could be in a position to make the move in the next few months.

“Several countries have been making noises about the possibility of making Bitcoin mainstream within their financial systems, but El Salvador’s government has been the only one to just simply get on with it – until now,” he said.

https://www.cityam.com/more-countries-line-up-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender-which-one-will-be-next/