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El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender

(ticotimes.net)
927 points smallerfish | 2 comments | 04 Feb 25 00:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.514s | 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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kylebenzle ◴[04 Feb 25 02:24 UTC] No.42926864[source]▶
Yeh, it failed so hard no one even uses it anymore.
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Kindra ◴[04 Feb 25 03:05 UTC] No.42927268[source]▶
Are you able to point to a single case where Bitcoin was used as legal tender in an every day business transaction? By this I mean, can you give an example where someone ordered a cup of coffee with Bitcoin directly and not through a proxy?
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freedomben ◴[04 Feb 25 03:18 UTC] No.42927378[source]▶
I used to pay my dish network bill with it before they stopped accepting it. I've also used it to send money to friends and family, and to donate to open source projects and other things.

If the fees were lower I'd use it for plenty of other things too.

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1. listenallyall ◴[04 Feb 25 04:28 UTC] No.42927948[source]▶
> If the fees were lower

Aye, there's the rub.

With all due respect, why not Bitcoin Cash or some other coin? Bitcoin Cash is the exact same thing as Bitcoin - same protocol, same 21 million coin limit, same Satoshi whitepaper, same everything, except bigger blocks and thus, much lower fees. If you are using a coin as an actual currency, and not as a speculator, why stick with high-fee Bitcoin?

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2. loophole27 ◴[04 Feb 25 15:04 UTC] No.42933208[source]▶
Took a lot of scrolling to find a mention of Bitcoin Cash.

I used to believe in Bitcoin in the beginning, but the high fees make it impractical to use as everyday currency.

Bitcoin Cash is much closer to what I had hoped Bitcoin would become. It’s the same as Bitcoin, except that it ideologically split exactly for the reason that some people wanted it to behave more like an actual currency, while others invented the “digital gold” narrative.