• El Salvador will continue buying 1 Bitcoin daily until it becomes unaffordable with fiat currencies
  • President Bukele’s statement highlights commitment to cryptocurrency adoption
  • Move demonstrates belief in Bitcoin’s long-term value and potential as a global currency alternative.
  • j4yt33@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    91
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    5 months ago

    Imagine your president being a 40yo cryptobro version of Trump. No wonder people are leaving

    • nivenkos@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      5 months ago

      He’s winning against the gangs though - every Salvadorean I know supports him.

      • GenEcon@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        Talk to families of unjustified imprisoned people or to the people itself. His ‘fixing’ was done by basically imprisoning everyone, which just happened to be close to any suspect gang member. There where even cases where a mailman was imprisoned because he just happenend to deliver a parcel during a raid.

        Yes, he fixed the gang problem for now. But at a high price – the loss of a fair justice system. He imprisoned 1.2 % of the total population in just 2 years.

        I know that freedom vs security is a fine balance and once security suffers significantly, you are willing to give up quiet a lot of freedom. But since he just imprisoned everyone and their relatives, its only a temporary fix – unless he wants to imprison them for life.

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          5 months ago

          I don’t think you understand how completely gangs had effectively taken over El Salvador until recently. Despite the obvious issues that you’ve pointed out, the situation is genuinely miles better than it was before for the vast majority of the population who were simply trying to live their lives.

        • Otherbarry@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          Talk to families of unjustified imprisoned people or to the people itself.

          Do you actually know & speak to people in El Salvador? Pretty much everyone I know there (family/friends) are ecstatic that there are no more gang members running around unchecked. The country is safer now then it has been in years.

          Nothing is perfect of course, poverty is still a major issue, but not having to deal with gang members every time you ride the bus, go out shopping, even just drive around, it’s a huge deal over there.

          Sure I get what you’re saying but for most people there it’s been a positive development.

          But since he just imprisoned everyone and their relatives, its only a temporary fix – unless he wants to imprison them for life.

          True… to be honest I suspect those people are imprisoned for life. No one expects gang members to be let out of prison while Bukele is still running the country, that’s going to be something that gets revisited when/if he’s out of office. It’s a massive human rights issue but at least for now the majority of Salvadorans consider it a net positive.

          The funny thing is that this article is about bitcoin & most Salvadorans don’t particularly care about that at all, it’s just kind of a headline that isn’t going to win/lose Bukele any support in the short term at least.

        • PatFusty@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          You seem to underestimate the gang problem. I was in Ilobasco a few years ago and my family that lives there urged me not to go outside past 7pm because I can be a target or even kidnapped. Like wtf why do the gangs get to dictate curfew in 2017? Past nightfall you have to turn the lights off so people in the streets can’t peek into your house through the metal guard rails on all the windows. It was eye opening to say the least. Since Nuevas Ideas I have only heard good things and good changes to the area from my family. There were so many people associated to the gangs that I have little sympathy for those ‘innocently accused’. I would rather a few loosely incorporated get caught than let the gangs do what they want freely.

      • Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        Since every Bitcoin transaction is traceable, it makes it easier to see where the money goes…

        • wahming@monyet.cc
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          And also stealable with a single passcode. Which they totally didn’t give the president’s nephew, no sirree

    • PatFusty@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      5 months ago

      Bukele and his government is nothing like Trumps. He doesn’t want El Salvador to use USD as the standard currency, that’s it…

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    71
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    5 months ago

    It’s tragic for the people of his country that they are being essentially forced into participating in a pyramid scheme

  • yildolw@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    59
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    El Salvador Will Keep Putting $71,000 into the President’s Swiss Bank Account Daily

    FTFY

  • Tetsuo@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    And then some hacker will get into that wallet and empty it.

    The presidency will act all shocked at the news pretending they did everything to secure it…

    • Alteon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      “some” hacker.

      Totally not involved with the government at all.

      Totally not tipped off about how to access it and where to put it.

      Totally just some random hacker that managed to make off with all of that government money. Oh well, we tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.

      Apologies citizens, your money is truly gone.

  • notfromhere@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    If this is legit and not corruption and bitcoin eventually takes off to ungodly levels, imagine the biggest bet in history paying off and their country turns around as an economic powerhouse. Risky and stupid but would make a good movie.

    • Buttons@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      The only thing keeping them a powerhouse would be a number on a computer that can be stolen. Question is, would people try to steal from a nation rich enough to be a powerhouse and how sophisticated would those theft attempts be?

  • OrangeCorvus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    5 months ago

    Venture capitalist Tim Draper believes that bitcoin will transform El Salvador into one of the wealthiest nations in the world

    Or one of the poorest? To the moooon 🔻

  • elgordino@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    5 months ago

    What does ‘unaffordable with fiat currencies’ even mean? This guy knows you can divide BTC right?

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      5 months ago

      The headline said 1BTC, so I take it to mean “until the price of 1BTC is too high to buy with real money”. They’re not saying they’ll buy $66000 worth of bitcoin per day indefinitely, just 1 whole bitcoin per day, regardless of how the price fluctuates, for as long as that’s viable.

      El Salvador doesn’t have its own currency; they use USD and recently bitcoin. I don’t know enough to say whether this makes sense.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        Right but you’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter if 1 BTC costs $1,000,000 when you can just buy 0.0001 BTC for $100. They would need to drive the cost of 1 BTC into the quadrillions of dollars before it would become even remotely unfeasible to purchase.

  • Yrt@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    Even if bitcoin wasn’t just a pyramid scheme and all but right now there are 900 new bitcoins each day, after the next halfing around the corner it’s still 450/day. So each day there will be more new bitcoin then he would buy in 1 year. Even the easiest numbers don’t add up even if he is just a 40yr cryptobro Trump version.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      It has zero purpose as currency support, but makes great sense for money laundering. Whose wallet do you think those bitcoins will end up in?

    • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      Just to explain it to people who don’t understand how it works.

      The point of the mining rewards is to make the Bitcoin supply infinite, while giving the price time to rise and Bitcoin to gain adoption. Once that 21m coins is created, no more can be created, so the price should stabilize and rise over time as less and less Bitcoin is around.

      • Yrt@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        I know how bitcoin works. But this cap of 21m will be around 2100 or even later if the mining power stays the same as today. So nobody reading this post will be alive around that time. And the same for El Salvador. Should all the people alive right now suffer, cause in around 100 years a theory of a new way for money could succeed? (And no, I don’t think bitcoin will ever be more than money laundering and daytraiding craziness ending in more money for the people laundering)

        • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          As far as a currency or store of wealth, Bitcoin is shit. Satoshi was/were an idealist(s), and for them it wasn’t about the money, it was about the idea. Decentralized proof of concept that anyone on the internet can access and can’t be censored without extreme global geopolitical cooperation. They chose to make it like a currency (Bitcoin) for adoption purposes, but the mathematical and technical concepts behind it can be used for any transfer of information that needs to be reliable, proven (signed), and decentralized, which makes it ideal for some things we are already using, and concepts we can’t even imagine yet.

          The idea sparked other blockchain concepts such as Monero which is actually designed to be used, like digital cash with tiny fee of pennies, not as a store of wealth or prospecting. It is essentially anonymous as the sender, receiver, and amount are never known except to those with access to the wallets.

          Smart contracts still have a long way to go but have some very interesting uses as well.

          Why does being around in 100 years matter for Bitcoin, though? It’s unlikely that Bitcoin will even be around in 100 years and Satoshi likely knew that or would have made the halving rates longer. Last halving was 2020. In about a month (next halving) block rewards will be halved from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, which puts upward pressure on miners to innovate (find new ways of reducing energy consumption and increasing hashing power), increasing scarcity, and, historically, increasing price.

  • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    5 months ago

    Then why do they tell everyone about it?

    Seems like a way to pump the price up just by press and not actually wanting to anything.

  • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    11
    ·
    5 months ago

    This guy has the will to at least help to usher in a world of no more government controlled currencies and that’s fantastic.