I don't live in El Salvador but if I were living there and I had a small shop selling ice cream, for instance, I would have 2 wallets, a non-government version and a regular wallet that supports bitcoin lightning So, let's say I sell $2 worth of ice cream and that's going to be enough to feed my family, those I will use the government version that allows me to convert to US $ The rest of the sales for the day, I will use the regular bitcoin wallet and that will be my family's investment savings account If a day is slow or if we have emergencies, I can use the bitcoin savings to cover the shortage in funds, since every business must accept it as legal tender But now, everyone, even the person who sells ice cream or sells fruits can have an investment account and if bitcoin doubles or 10x, they have the ability to increase their wealth by the same amount [edit: of course like any investment, they can also lose value]
That's the danger, the average person is a complete moron and Bitcoin will make them even more moronic. As a result, instead of these businessed having a responsible amount of Bitcoin in their balance sheet (5-10% rebalanced regularly) they might have an extreme amount as a result of greed. So their business will become very pro cyclical with the crypto markets. When crypto bear markets occur, lots of these business will go under or they will layoff like crazy. The case study could show its not a good idea for businesses to do that. So, you got to worry about that as well
Absolutely. The best thing they could do would be to start implementing crypto friendly business laws, like Wyoming is doing. Lots of business would move there and other countries would start to do that as well (like the tax havens just copy whatever Cayman/BVI does and try get a piece of the action). If that happens, then the whole 'governments will ban BTC' thesis will be severly tarnished because all any fund needs to do to own crypto would be to open a crypto business in a country that is friendly to it and its game over. To this day they still cant stop Big US business from saving money in taxes in the havens and its a battle big governments have been for decades However, I do think US policy markers are aware this would happen and that's why they will regulate crypto and not ban it. So far the ban train has been more present in nocoiner tweets than in the real world, at least as far as the US and EU goes
https://cointelegraph.com/news/reports-suggest-blockfi-seeks-to-raise-millions-at-a-valuation-of-5b The idea that BlockFi is worth $5B and BitGo only $1.2B has to be one of the most ridiculous propositions about crypto currently
I don't see these as markers of bearish sentiment - e.g. in the last article the "bear" says he plans to starting buying at 28.5k to catch the next bull phase, which is barely below the recent range. A genuinely bearish article would be something like: "bitcoin may never reclaim previous highs", "bitcoin may languish below 30k for many years", "with the huge threats of regulation and a Tether collapse bitcoin could easily fall below $10k, or much lower", and so on. Certainly there would be no mention of buying. Bubble-crashes tend to exhibit symmetry, which suggests we might have 3-5 more weeks of chop in the 30s before an attempt to break lower - if one is to occur.
Looks like Shiff's bank lost their USD correspondent bank relationship " Hello XXXX, Please be advised that there is a delay in processing the USD wire transfers provoked by our correspondent bank. It may now take between 10 to 20 business days to deliver the the payments in this currency. If you prefer not to wait that long and send the wire in other currency not affected by the delay (EUR, GBP, etc), please advise us so that we could cancel the payment. We are truly sorry for this inconvenience. Best regards, Client Services" Now I will have to pay 1.5% to convert into EUR and another 1.5% to convert to my local currency (plus wire fees) not to mention the fact that I lost 2 weeks in this effort. Oh, and the FX transfer is made via a help ticket, there is no button for it. That's the future of finance according to Peter Schiff
From ZH: ...earlier today MSTR CEO Michael Saylor confirmed that the transaction had been consummated with the company buying 13,005 bitcoin at an average price of $37,617 for a total of $489 million. The transaction has cemented MSTR's status as the largest corporate hodler of bitcoin, with a total of 105,085 bitcoin acquired for $2.741 billion or an average price of $26,080... MSTR is already down $60 million on this position as of now, another $6k fall in BTC and they're in the red since inception. The presence of large numbers of underwater margined longs is probably the single most bearish factor that can exist in any market. IMO BTC, and by extension the crypto universe, is in a very dangerous position at the moment - combining extremely negative price action with lingering bullishness and lots of trapped whales below that 45-48k level. A number of coiners on ET added to their positions a few weeks ago, and here we are challenging the recent lows again. If we drop into the 20s then the Tether blowup scenario is also suddenly in play. And then, e.g. how willing is Elon Musk to let plunging crypto prices trash his quarterly numbers for TSLA?