←back to thread

El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

(ticotimes.net)
927 points smallerfish | 9 comments | 04 Feb 25 00:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.557s | source | bottom
Show context
epolanski ◴[04 Feb 25 00:15 UTC] No.42925380[source]▶
Nobody wants to spend it anyway, just hoard or sell it to the next sucker willing to shell more $.

Among all the crypto shills I know I'm probably the only one who has used it for trade (0.25ish Bitcoins for a computer on caseking.de in late 2017 and few goodies on local bitcoin in the same year).

replies(1): >>42925427 #
dmix ◴[04 Feb 25 00:19 UTC] No.42925427[source]▶
Mostly because transferring BTC is very expensive. Every time I’ve done it I’m shocked at the fees that sites like Bitbuy requires. So if you’re going to do it then it has to be for a good reason.
replies(4): >>42925525 #>>42925624 #>>42925748 #>>42926208 #
1. xp84 ◴[04 Feb 25 00:34 UTC] No.42925624[source]▶
This is fascinating to me because we were told 15 years ago (ish) that one of the main things that made crypto special (besides it being guaranteed finite unlike fiat) was that unlike say, Visa, it would be economic to use, even for small transactions, because The Big Banks wouldn't take their ~3% cut of every transaction. We all assumed that cut was determined by greed, but if Bitcoin is expensive to transact in now, it could be that in free market terms, that there is actually a certain value people place on the ability to move funds around, and if Bitcoin were much cheaper, that there is room for middlemen to take margin and push the effective cost of using crypto closer to the fees we hate being charged by banks to use the card networks.
replies(6): >>42925775 #>>42926079 #>>42926252 #>>42927526 #>>42928621 #>>42935720 #
2. desumeku ◴[04 Feb 25 00:48 UTC] No.42925775[source]▶
There are blockchains other than Bitcoin which have no or almost no fees for transactions. Bitcoin could have low TX fees, but its core developers have deliberately kept the maximum block size at 1 megabyte and have refused to increase it.
replies(1): >>42926226 #
3. BobbyTables2 ◴[04 Feb 25 01:15 UTC] No.42926079[source]▶
The cut was determined by greed.

Technically cryptocurrencies were meant to be held and exchanged directly, without an exchange.

Of course that isn’t convenient for non-enthusiasts…

How fortunate we are that crypto exchanges, run by private companies with little government regulation, operate out of the goodness of their heart /s…

replies(1): >>42926256 #
4. epolanski ◴[04 Feb 25 01:28 UTC] No.42926226[source]▶
And the community "decided" to follow the core developers who controlled the narrative on r/bitcoin, bitcointalk and various exchanges when Bitcoin was forked, with the first chain (Core) remaining "Bitcoin" and the other fork then being labeled "Cash".
5. bawolff ◴[04 Feb 25 01:30 UTC] No.42926252[source]▶
Transaction fees are because bitcoin is an inherently inefficient system.

Don't get me wrong, satoshi is a genius, but there are severe tradeoffs required to get the properties bitcoin wants.

6. epolanski ◴[04 Feb 25 01:30 UTC] No.42926256[source]▶
Transaction fees have nothing to do with crypto exchanges (which would probably love them to be lower).
7. attila-lendvai ◴[04 Feb 25 03:34 UTC] No.42927526[source]▶
don't forget that when you use fiat you are also charged inflation, and your economic activity is kept inside their zoo for all kinds of benefits to the zoo keepers beside inflation.

this should all be added to that 3% card fees.

8. lawn ◴[04 Feb 25 06:04 UTC] No.42928621[source]▶
The fees in Bitcoin are much higher than they have to be and there's absolutely zero desire from the developers or community to do anything about since number goes up, and that trumps all.

There are cryptocurrencies that follow the original idea but they're not as popular because they haven't increased in proce as much as Bitcoin.

9. max51 ◴[04 Feb 25 17:33 UTC] No.42935720[source]▶
a major difference you are not considering is that bitcoin fees are fixed and don't change based on the value of the transaction.

Right now they are at around 0.15$. That's too much IMO to go buy a 1$ coffee with bitcoin, but it would also be 0.15$ if you were buying a 2000$ macbook, a 60000$ car or a 2M$ house.