Apologies and no disrespect, but I disagree Poor and uneducated does not mean incapable of managing income streams, investments and savings Please hear me out Our ancestors since ancient times have survived by managing crops harvest and saving for rainy days. Remember the ants and the grasshopper fable They did not have an education from the prestigious business school universities I have a childhood friend from a 3rd world country who sold inherited land to start a scrap yard (recycling) business 15 years ago. He's a high school dropout, but is now very successful, with trucks. To this day I text him if the price of copper has a big move so he can adjust his price ahead of local competition. He's like a commodities trader buying aluminum, copper, plastics, etc and selling to dealers for profits. Again, with very little education and came from a poor background President Bukele is offering the people of El Salvador a choice. Something they never had before, which 70% of the population are unbanked With bitcoin now as an option, they will have the ability to have a savings account/investment account I have the video from vice where the construction worker talks about saving his money in bitcoin compared to in the past when he got paid and spent as fast as he could High time preference vs low time preference per the book "The Bitcoin Standard"
Your friend who was handed a silver spoon has nothing in common with the people in El Salvador nor does he represent the notion that BTC will make the country rich and amazing investors. i dont think BTC is the means to teach people in El S to become investors and savers. Turning the entire poor country of El Salvador into the Enron 401K is not a good idea. Using a speculative currency is not a tool for building across the board wealth. Only the rich will get richer. remember... where is this money coming from? People working in the U.S. sending money back to their families. The people in El Salvador did not earn it, they are being handed it by their families so why would we think that en masse they will develop a sense of savings and investment when they are being supported by overseas money. BTC was suggested mainly as a means to reduce the cost of funds transfers and make it more efficient. If El Salvador now wants to turn it into an investment security and get millions of people locking in their savings into it then it is a disaster. Guess what happens when the next BTC chop happens and it goes from $49,000 to $20,000.... you will have wiped out millions of real money people could have used to feed and clothe their families. Rather than save the money in normal ways you are asking the people to speculate with it. When their savings accounts suddenly drop by 30% will they just wait it out for 7 months for BTC to come back and live off air? I understand your argument but the people are just barely living above poverty levels and survive MAINLY on remittances from overseas. They are not yet ready to become currency speculators and risk their little means on a possible bubble.
"handed a silver spoon" My friend's parents passed away before he was able to sell his share of the land with 8 siblings. He sold the land for about $700 He stopped going to school as was too poor to buy supplies, mainly the school uniform which has standards , can't got in shoes with holes or pants and shirts with holes Now his business has 2 big trucks paid for in cash, that's the size of his business I'll stop responding as you seem to feel strongly about dictating to others what they are allowed to do with their money they got from relatives Bitcoin is decentralized p2p, immutable, permissionless, distributed crypto digital asset
Sorry if I hit a nerve but your friends experience is not everyone's experience. I did not dictate anything. I said the best thing for the people is to receive the BTC and turn it back to US$ to use for support like they always have but now they have more money due to less fees. your suggestion is to turn them into BTC investors but they are barely surviving on money sent from abroad and you are suggesting they become currency traders... No one is stopping anyone from accumulating BTC to invest but then the government should not lift a finger if they lose it all when BTC volatility comes back. fair is fair
El Gato makes a point though... When BTC has the next major drop of 50%, that equates to basically 100% inflation in their wallets. What used to cost X now costs X*2. This ties into that video you had posted about the guy from El Salvador (Yeah, I watched it), who said that when he used to get cash, he spent it all right away. But now with his BTC wallet he doesn't spend it all right away? I don't understand that. So because he is lo longer physically handling money, he is more fiscally responsible? *shrugs*
It's also about becoming "banked". El salvadorians get access to the global market place and are able to buy and sell services and goods with anyone regardless where they are. Volatility is not a problem. USD is still the base currency and the XBT/USD exchange price is fixed on-the-fly at the Point-of-Sale by the cashier. It also give them access to stock market. There is trackers for SPY, QQQ and major stocks like AAPL available to be purchased using crypto.
This whole thread, and I actually read all 7 pages... Hmmmm. Not my wheelhouse really.... BUT.... and I checked to make sure.... The GDP of El Salvador is like $56B To put that that in perspective.... the state of Maine.... it has a GDP of $68B. Perhaps we're making a whole lot out of nothing? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Just a thought. But ya know, national currency or not.... people are using cryptos to send money. Just glancing at the chart... I bet WU has $19 in it easy as a short play. More dd required though. Nice H&S breech from 10/20 though. Western Union lol... at least change the friggin name to something that fits with this century.
Maybe you missed the part quoted from the article with So having a smart phone without the infrastructure to support it might not be enough.