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El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

(ticotimes.net)
927 points smallerfish | 3 comments | 04 Feb 25 00:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.553s | 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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stephen_g ◴[04 Feb 25 02:17 UTC] No.42926769[source]▶
Despite that interference, from everything I’ve read though it’s hard to describe the bitcoin experiment as anything else than a massive failure…
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mlcrypto ◴[04 Feb 25 02:28 UTC] No.42926901[source]▶
Massive success actually for anyone holding. Did you forget the price is $100k?
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tapoxi ◴[04 Feb 25 02:35 UTC] No.42926964[source]▶
But you're not supposed to hold legal tender, by design you're supposed to spend it.
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redundantly ◴[04 Feb 25 02:37 UTC] No.42926981[source]▶
gestures at all of the billionaires
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chungy ◴[04 Feb 25 02:41 UTC] No.42927015[source]▶
I dare you to come up with a single example of someone that has a billion dollars in liquid assets. They probably don't exist: "billionaries" are worth billions on paper, thanks to stocks, investments, real estate holdings, etc.

All in all, billionaires are a bad example of holding legal tender, because that just doesn't happen.

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1. thinkski ◴[04 Feb 25 03:39 UTC] No.42927568[source]▶
Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway has over $300B in cash reserves, Buffett owns 15% of Berkshire and directs investments — he chose to park all that value in cash reserves, roughly $50B of that is his share.
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2. nicbou ◴[04 Feb 25 03:44 UTC] No.42927609[source]▶
That's still shares of a company, isn't it?
3. nosefurhairdo ◴[04 Feb 25 03:51 UTC] No.42927658[source]▶
> While Buffett has stated that Berkshire Hathaway will maintain a permanent cash reserve of about $30 billion to fund potential insurance payouts, Bloomstran takes a more conservative approach and adds about $50 billion to that reserve level to account for a full year's worth of potential insurance losses.

From this article in 2024: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffe...

There is additional context there explaining why Berkshire holding cash reserves is unique to their needs, and historically has only represented 17.5% of their total assets.

Billionaires and large firms are not sitting on piles of cash Scrooge McDuck style, because holding cash is costly.