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El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

(ticotimes.net)
927 points smallerfish | 4 comments | 04 Feb 25 00:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.869s | source
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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. purist33 ◴[04 Feb 25 03:11 UTC] No.42927312[source]▶
There is a book called "Talking to your daughter about Economics", where the author explains one of the problems with bitcoin is, you cant print more of it in a crisis. Maybe thats what happened here.
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2. cle ◴[04 Feb 25 03:15 UTC] No.42927355[source]▶
Ironically part of the long-term problem was El Salvador's dollarization, also preventing them from printing in a crisis (that crisis being the COVID pandemic).
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3. isubkhankulov ◴[04 Feb 25 03:20 UTC] No.42927403[source]▶
That may be one of the problems with bitcoin as legal tender and official state currency but not a problem with Bitcoin itself, quite the opposite: as evidenced by the genesis block’s embedded message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”
4. el-salvador ◴[04 Feb 25 15:07 UTC] No.42933238[source]▶
Dollarization was unpopular at first in El Salvador but after 24 years of dollarization, and both right and left wing governments, there are are no official plans of rolling it back. It's way too convenient to use the world's most used currency as our everyday currency.