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El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

(ticotimes.net)
927 points smallerfish | 9 comments | 04 Feb 25 00:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.335s | source | bottom
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portaouflop ◴[04 Feb 25 02:07 UTC] No.42926658[source]▶
IMF gave them 1.4 billion to abandon the “experiment”:

> The IMF made this a condition for a loan of 1.4 billion US dollars (1.35 billion euros). In December of last year, the IMF reached an agreement with President Nayib Bukele’s government on the loan of the stated amount to strengthen the country’s “fiscal sustainability” and mitigate the “risks associated with Bitcoin,” as it was described.

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I dislike cryptocurrencies as much as the next guy but this was clearly something else than a failure of the currency itself

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1. kristjansson ◴[04 Feb 25 02:11 UTC] No.42926697[source]▶
Conversely if that’s all it takes to induce them to give up it tells you something about the benefits they felt were accruing from BTC.
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2. syndicatedjelly ◴[04 Feb 25 02:13 UTC] No.42926726[source]▶
Is that really the message?
3. wongarsu ◴[04 Feb 25 02:19 UTC] No.42926793[source]▶
Keep in mind that El Salvador is tiny. This is like 14 days of El Salvador's entire GDP. Or scaled to GDP, it's like giving a $1.2 Trillion loan to the USA.
4. hammock ◴[04 Feb 25 02:19 UTC] No.42926807[source]▶
El Salvador has been in the IMF debt trap since 1949. It’s not just a billion dollar loan we’re talking about. Although scaled to GDP it’s quite a lot
5. olalonde ◴[04 Feb 25 03:10 UTC] No.42927307[source]▶
They're not giving up on Bitcoin. In fact, it's likely that they'll use the loan to buy more Bitcoin.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/el-salvadors-bitc...

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6. genem9 ◴[04 Feb 25 10:46 UTC] No.42930760[source]▶
They already are. Just bought 20
7. taurknaut ◴[04 Feb 25 13:16 UTC] No.42931906[source]▶
Who are they possible gonna offload that bitcoin on to? Their neighbor? That doesn't strike me as a socially acceptable thing to do.
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8. olalonde ◴[04 Feb 25 13:53 UTC] No.42932331{3}[source]▶
There's a deep and liquid market for Bitcoin - El Salvador isn't even a major holder in the grand scheme of things. I don't see what's socially unacceptable about selling Bitcoin to a willing buyer; it's simply a transaction between two parties, no different from trading foreign currency like USD. There's also no indication that they plan to spend or trade their Bitcoin anytime soon.
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9. taurknaut ◴[05 Feb 25 03:36 UTC] No.42943393{4}[source]▶
> i don't see what's socially unacceptable about selling Bitcoin to a willing buyer

Well you're accepting payment for something people are expecting to hold value. Bitcoin only has value to a small subset of people with money. I'd definitely judge you for selling it if you have options for financial transactions via SWIFT.