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

[DdmrDdmr]

Although I wasn’t really expecting to see them, @Bukele has published a few stats from a screenshot of a control Dashboard they are using:
 

see: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442533230540886019

Going over the data, they seem to be mixing notation for decimal points and thousands separator:

-   Total Users (Usuarios Totals) uses ',' to separate thousands.

-   ATM TX/day (Transacciones por Día) uses '.' to separate what seems thousands (conceptually more logical than a decimal point).

-   Chivo TXs/second (Transacciones por Segundo -> 65,437) could therefore be, bearing in mind that a day has 86400 seconds:

1)      86400 * 65.437 (decimal point [1])= 5 653 756  TX/day
2)      86400 * 65,437 (thousands separator [2])= 5 653 756 800 TX/day
Obviously it’s the former, and that is a pretty high figure. Perhaps the reading is an average of TX/s over the last hour, and not based on a wider range like 24 hours.


The Dashboard therefore is mixing decimal and thousand separators …

El Salvador uses formally:
[1] Decimal point: '.'
[2] Thousands separator: ','

[1713998871]

1713998871

[1713998871]

1713998871

[Lucius]

More and more people understand the value and usefulness of using bitcoin, so the official crypto wallet of the government of El Salvador Chivowallet is already actively used by 2.1 million residents of this country who have joined in the last 3 weeks, according to the statement of the president of the country
Nayib Bukele has more customers than all the banks in El Salvador combined.

An impressive figure for a country of supposedly 6.5 million people - but one fact we must not forget, and that is that the people who download Chivo wallet were financially motivated to do so because of the $30 they make in this way. We may wonder what the result would have been if there had been no additional motivation. What we all need to be much more interested in is how many of these users will actually remain active in the future.

The data that would be even more interesting to know is how many downloads the app has had in El Salvador, and how many abroad - because over 2 million El Salvadorians live in the US alone.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

(to contextualize)

It seems that there are plenty of people lost in interpreting those Dashboard numbers:
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1442624279028408321

@Bukele tried to throw some light, with a moderate success:

“Transacciones por segundo” doesn’t mean that we have 65,437 new transactions every sec, but that the system is processing an average of 65,437 transactions every sec.

Note: In the above statement, nobody knows whether the ',' is a decimal holder or a thousand separator. Visa does something like 1,700 TX/s (thousand separator) according to multiple sources. This therefore strengthens the idea that the ',' is decimal point holder in their Dashboard.

Given the statement, and some other later Tweets on the above referenced link, some TXs take more than a few seconds to complete (some people even mention days on end). Therefore, at a busy point in time, the number will pile up on ongoing TXs, which is what @Bukele is saying that is being measured. That is of course rather different to new TXs/second, especially if the network were to be saturated at the time of the data snapshot, coinciding for example with a peak network time and a heavy pending backlog.

All in all, the indicator has a usefulness to monitor congestion and such, but from my point of view, as an outside reader, I’d be happier with a New TX/day ( + evolution chart).

[Sithara007]

“Transacciones por segundo” doesn’t mean that we have 65,437 new transactions every sec, but that the system is processing an average of 65,437 transactions every sec.

Note: In the above statement, nobody knows whether the ',' is a decimal holder or a thousand separator. Visa does something like 1,700 TX/s (thousand separator) according to multiple sources. This therefore strengthens the idea that the ',' is decimal point holder in their Dashboard.

The original post was in Spanish and it mentioned 14.567 “Transacciones por dia” (i.e 14,567 transactions per day) and 65,437 “Transacciones por segundo” (i.e 65.4 transactions per second). For me, the number looks low. In the same tweet, it was mentioned "Usuarios Totales - 2,255,936". If the number of users are more than 2.25 million, then I would expect much more than 14,500 transactions per day. Anyway, I hope that the numbers will pick up in the coming days as people get more familiar with Chivo.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

The 14.567 (thousands separator) TX per day create some confusion, and I’ve seen many comments elsewhere reasoning along this line. The figure, nevertheless, is under de "ATM" supra-caption, so I’d say that it relates exclusively to ATM TXs, and not the whole Chivo network (which would be incoherent with regards to what one would expect).

That would render an average of 73 TX per active ATM per day, which still may seem rather low for what we’d expect. We do have to take into consideration though that ATM positioning and usage will be diverse, and we also don’t really know if the number of daily TXs corresponds to a running 24 hours, or the current day (the latter would make the significance of the value time sensitive).

I'd love to see indicator definitions …

[btc78]

today the government in the country of El Salvador is openly adopting bitcoin on a national scale which they apply to their people in the country, maybe for some people this is a very good thing for the effectiveness of bitcoin in the future with the adoption of the country of El Salvador, with what that country has done we really hope that there will be a lot of acceptance by other countries of bitcoin

this will take time mate but the important thing is that EL Salvador had already started the run and nowadays there are other countries that showing their interest in doing the same thing.

Yeah this maybe a small country but what we must understand is they did made a best decision a country ever had and that is adopting a option in which will literally help their people got closer to reality of life and that is Decentralization .

[Daltonik]

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele shares a video showing the installation of several bitcoin mining machines inside a geothermal power plant, it looks beautiful.

He supplemented the tweet with the short words "First steps"

[hd49728]

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele shares a video showing the installation of several bitcoin mining machines inside a geothermal power plant, it looks beautiful.

The nation is very seriously with their Bitcoin adoption. It is not only about legal tender but their app (Chivo), airdrop process to their citizens and installation of mining facilities.

They will be the model for other small nations to follow. It's certainly that small nations will force big nations to follow because they all care about profit for their countries.

If El Salvador succeed with their actions, other nations will follow and it will bring Bitcoin then cryptocurrency market to a new all time high. Demand will be much higher than what it is now. The increase of demand will combine with Bitcoin halving events each four years to make Bitcoin looks like a more valuable asset.

[JayJuanGee]

I am amazed at how open the president of El Salvador is. It is one thing to legally declare Bitcoin as a currency or alternative payment method in an entire country, another to declare it as a legal tender. However, this can be good. if the bill is signed and passed into law. This will be the first test of bitcoin as an accepted currency and make it one of the most popular and legal currencies around the world.

Do you even know how to read beyond the first post in this particular thread?

Just to clarify for other people who might be reading this thread.

The President of El Salvador announced this bitcoin as legal tender matter on about June 4/5.

Law was passed by El Salvador's parliament on about June 7 with an effective date of September 7.

Law went into effect on September 7, and currently the El Salvador law with bitcoin as legal tender is in an "into effect" and implementation status.

[Sithara007]

The 14.567 (thousands separator) TX per day create some confusion, and I’ve seen many comments elsewhere reasoning along this line. The figure, nevertheless, is under de "ATM" supra-caption, so I’d say that it relates exclusively to ATM TXs, and not the whole Chivo network (which would be incoherent with regards to what one would expect).

That would render an average of 73 TX per active ATM per day, which still may seem rather low for what we’d expect. We do have to take into consideration though that ATM positioning and usage will be diverse, and we also don’t really know if the number of daily TXs corresponds to a running 24 hours, or the current day (the latter would make the significance of the value time sensitive).

I'd love to see indicator definitions …

Well.. if the 14,500 figure represents only ATM transactions, then it makes sense for me. Personally I visit the ATM only once or twice per month. So the 2.25 million users making 10,000-20,000 ATM transactions in a day is not very surprising. But the number of total transactions in Chivo will be much higher. Because I heard reports that a lot of people are using the wallet to buy coffee and for shopping. The daily transactions may be more than a million (although need confirmation on this). Anyway, they have 199 Bitcoin ATMs now (minus one that was burnt down recently). So it translates to around 70 transactions per day, per ATM.

[Daltonik]

Ha Salvador is increasingly introducing bitcoin and blockchain into the country's economy, so the president Nayib Bukele writes on Twitter that from tomorrow, the two largest gas stations in the country will sell each gallon of fuel for $0.20 cheaper if you use Chivowallet.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

That’s roughly a 5% off per gallon (see https://es.globalpetrolprices.com/El-Salvador/gasoline_prices/ for current prices in El Salvador), though only for the next couple of weeks, regardless though of whether you pay in BTC or USD.

Actually, @Bukele’s team might have negotiated with the largest gas station groups in El Salvador, but the logos on the promo correspond to Puma and Uno, so I guess they haven’t landed Texaco which is the largest group, nor White flag which is pretty large (see https://dlca.logcluster.org/display/public/DLCA/3.1+El+Salvador+Fuel).

[hd49728]

Ha Salvador is increasingly introducing bitcoin and blockchain into the country's economy, so the president Nayib Bukele writes on Twitter that from tomorrow, the two largest gas stations in the country will sell each gallon of fuel for $0.20 cheaper if you use Chivowallet.

Bukele and his team are very smart and well-planned to promote Bitcoin in El Salvador. They are so creative and made good decisions to be the first nation that accepts Bitcoin as legal tender.

After makes it becomes true, they are seriously to educate their citizens about Bitcoin, its transactions, Lightning network and more. Airdrop distributions and education make the nation now is like a hub of the growth of Bitcoin. The world look at El Salvador and I believe many small nations with abundant green energy are trying to learn from El Salvador.

[Daltonik]

Vitalik Buterin criticized El Salvador's decision to recognize bitcoin as an official monetary unit. Well, Vitalik, does he have his own point of view on everything, or is he dissatisfied with the fact that El Salvador legalized bitcoin and not ETH? I don't understand why he is talking about the forced imposition of bitcoin as a means of payment or is the incentive to use it through discounts a compulsion?
On Reddit in the discussion thread https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/q3udz3/unpopular_opinion_el_salvador_president_mr_nayab / user u/vbuterin said that “there is nothing unpopular in this opinion”" noting that "the mandatory adoption by enterprises of a certain cryptocurrency contradicts the ideals of freedom, which are supposed to be so important for the crypto space."

[DdmrDdmr]

@Bukele announced today that they are going to invest 4M $ … in a pet hospital. The funds should come from a surplus in the Trust fund they created for the Chivo Wallet system, derived from the current accounting value of the Trust. The trust has now more value than when it was created due to the BTC purchases they made using money from the said trust, and that is what they are planning to use to build the pet hospital, using only the part is USD of the Trust (not the part in BTC).

That somehow seems wrong to me, and although we hope that BTC will go "to infinity and beyond" (so as to say), nobody can rule out a drop in price that could lead the Chivo Trust to go into losses (in terms of accounting). The 4M $ spent on a pet hospital seem to differ rather much from the purpose of the Trust, and liquidate part of the accounting contingency value to better withhold in the said potential scenario.

See from this tweet on (upwards):
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1447017312893161478

[Lucius]

@Bukele announced today that they are going to invest 4M $ … in a pet hospital.

I can’t say what the health care in El Salvador is like, but it doesn’t seem so good to me that they can afford to open such a modern pet hospital. According to the 3D view, it is really a super modern institution, something that I have experienced only in the private health sector in my country. I don't mind helping animals, on the contrary - but building such facilities in a country that is relatively poor could anger most people in that country.

Click on the link posted by @DdmrDdmr and scroll down to see the video.

[stadus]

Vitalik Buterin criticized El Salvador's decision to recognize bitcoin as an official monetary unit. Well, Vitalik, does he have his own point of view on everything, or is he dissatisfied with the fact that El Salvador legalized bitcoin and not ETH? I don't understand why he is talking about the forced imposition of bitcoin as a means of payment or is the incentive to use it through discounts a compulsion?
On Reddit in the discussion thread https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/q3udz3/unpopular_opinion_el_salvador_president_mr_nayab / user u/vbuterin said that “there is nothing unpopular in this opinion”" noting that "the mandatory adoption by enterprises of a certain cryptocurrency contradicts the ideals of freedom, which are supposed to be so important for the crypto space."

Vitalik has a point though, there's no freedom anymore if one is forced to accept bitcoin, however, I do understand the stance of the government, they were the first country to legalized bitcoin and it's not only for the purpose of it using as a payment system but their interest is to benefit from its adoption which is to profit from their investment.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/el-salvador-buys-150-more-bitcoins-president-says-2021-09-20/

They keep buying bitcoin and therefore they will also make sure that people under their regulation will use bitcoin to ensure that the growth of bitcoin as an investment.

[pinggoki]

Thing is, this is both a good and a bad move on El Salvador's part. it's good that they tried to push people into using a much superior form of currency against the ones they came to know with, but the transition process is almost non-existent. People are complaining, not to mention the fact that no prior education amongst the citizens of El Salvador was given which causes a lot of confusion and distraught on their part. You can't really blame the nay-sayers when you are faced all of a sudden with a novel concept that is shoved down your throat like spicy sausage.

Vitalik Buterin criticized El Salvador's decision to recognize bitcoin as an official monetary unit. Well, Vitalik, does he have his own point of view on everything, or is he dissatisfied with the fact that El Salvador legalized bitcoin and not ETH? I don't understand why he is talking about the forced imposition of bitcoin as a means of payment or is the incentive to use it through discounts a compulsion?
On Reddit in the discussion thread https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/q3udz3/unpopular_opinion_el_salvador_president_mr_nayab / user u/vbuterin said that “there is nothing unpopular in this opinion”" noting that "the mandatory adoption by enterprises of a certain cryptocurrency contradicts the ideals of freedom, which are supposed to be so important for the crypto space."

Whether he said this because he's salty about ETH not being on the El Salvadorian wallets, you can't deny that his statement made sense in a way. Although this is something we envision for a future, a decentralized coin being regulated by a central government seemed so funny and absurd in paper but that is basically what's happening with El Salvador right now. Not to mention the drastic transition that left all the people who are not that tech savvy to be left in the dirt.

[watergold]

@Bukele announced today that they are going to invest 4M $ … in a pet hospital. The funds should come from a surplus in the Trust fund they created for the Chivo Wallet system, derived from the current accounting value of the Trust. The trust has now more value than when it was created due to the BTC purchases they made using money from the said trust, and that is what they are planning to use to build the pet hospital, using only the part is USD of the Trust (not the part in BTC).

That somehow seems wrong to me, and although we hope that BTC will go "to infinity and beyond" (so as to say), nobody can rule out a drop in price that could lead the Chivo Trust to go into losses (in terms of accounting). The 4M $ spent on a pet hospital seem to differ rather much from the purpose of the Trust, and liquidate part of the accounting contingency value to better withhold in the said potential scenario.

See from this tweet on (upwards):
https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1447017312893161478

things like this are quite good because it is not only humans who need to be considered but also animals. although I don't know what kind of health facility there is but it's a good thing.
but actions like this now I feel are not right even though it is one of the good things.
this is the same as pouring oil into a blazing fire because we know that they are still facing chaos due to the adoption of bitcoin in recent months, besides that their economic condition is also still very relatively low. and of course this will cause other anger from most of the people there because if it can be considered a hospital for pets it is a secondary thing, it can even become tertiary.
it will be very funny later when the needs that are not too important are prioritized but their primary needs in the economy are still falling.

[JayJuanGee]

Thing is, this is both a good and a bad move on El Salvador's part. it's good that they tried to push people into using a much superior form of currency against the ones they came to know with, but the transition process is almost non-existent. People are complaining, not to mention the fact that no prior education amongst the citizens of El Salvador was given which causes a lot of confusion and distraught on their part. You can't really blame the nay-sayers when you are faced all of a sudden with a novel concept that is shoved down your throat like spicy sausage.

Vitalik Buterin criticized El Salvador's decision to recognize bitcoin as an official monetary unit. Well, Vitalik, does he have his own point of view on everything, or is he dissatisfied with the fact that El Salvador legalized bitcoin and not ETH? I don't understand why he is talking about the forced imposition of bitcoin as a means of payment or is the incentive to use it through discounts a compulsion?
On Reddit in the discussion thread https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/q3udz3/unpopular_opinion_el_salvador_president_mr_nayab / user u/vbuterin said that “there is nothing unpopular in this opinion”" noting that "the mandatory adoption by enterprises of a certain cryptocurrency contradicts the ideals of freedom, which are supposed to be so important for the crypto space."

Whether he said this because he's salty about ETH not being on the El Salvadorian wallets, you can't deny that his statement made sense in a way. Although this is something we envision for a future, a decentralized coin being regulated by a central government seemed so funny and absurd in paper but that is basically what's happening with El Salvador right now. Not to mention the drastic transition that left all the people who are not that tech savvy to be left in the dirt.

You come off as about as lost and/or disoriented as that goofball Vitalik... in your failure/refusal to recognize and appreciate that more options are being provided (made available) for El Salvadorians, whether they take advantage of such more options or not.

Furthermore, the extent to which the government is involved in training people can be considered a kind of double-edged sword in terms of there are quite a few advantages in that the government of El Salvador has provided the space for people to use bitcoin and to learn about bitcoin, including that private sector innovators can step into the matter of teaching and providing services too.. providing services and training people.

Seems like more options rather than fewer options, and no need to consider the matter as glass half full when quite a bit of progress is being made and has more potential of being made (and developed along the way).. and another good thing, at least so far, is that the El Salvador government did not get involved in delusional thinking in terms of considering that ethereum is actually providing much if anything of value, so I can see why Vitalik wants to get his little digs in there.. because Vitalik likely cannot even see straight anymore in terms of his level of trying to justify his piece of crap (and shifting narrative) smoke and mirrors baloney.