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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: 0s | 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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roenxi ◴[04 Feb 25 04:21 UTC] No.42927899[source]▶
If I could convince someone to give me 1.x billion to change my behaviour, I would consider that behaviour a massive success without much further thought. It isn't a huge amount of money at the scale of a national economy but >$1 billion for nothing is a win.

Although of course it is unknowable how much of that money was bribe and how much El Salvador would have gotten without additional leverage.

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dragonwriter ◴[04 Feb 25 04:44 UTC] No.42928079[source]▶
> If I could convince someone to give me 1.x billion to change my behaviour

I think you need to refresh your understanding of the difference between a loan and a gift; it wasn't an incentive to change the behavior, it was a loan to deal with the problems caused by the behavior.

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roenxi ◴[04 Feb 25 04:51 UTC] No.42928131[source]▶
There are loans and there are "loans". This isn't El Salvador issuing bonds on the market, it is politics that comes with political conditions. That means they negotiated it and that means they got something in exchange for any leverage they could find.
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pajko ◴[04 Feb 25 05:07 UTC] No.42928251[source]▶
The IMF are tough guys, countries do not want to owe them, but usually don't have better options. They don't give "loans" and impose rather strict policies on everything. https://actionaid.org/publications/2023/fifty-years-failure-...
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AnthonyMouse ◴[04 Feb 25 06:36 UTC] No.42928852[source]▶
The IMF are an arm of the US "diplomatic" apparatus. The charitable interpretation of how they operate looks like this:

  1) A country is doing something the US doesn't like.
  2) The country is in some trouble of their own making.
  3) The IMF will come and bail them out if they would be inclined to start doing the things the US likes instead of the things it doesn't like.
The uncharitable interpretation of "2)" is "the country is doing alright so the US overtly or covertly causes problems for them so they become in trouble".

Basically, the IMF money is the carrot you get for bending the knee. The stick can be the CIA or other things.

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warkdarrior ◴[04 Feb 25 06:54 UTC] No.42928980{3}[source]▶
So your claim is that US administration through the IMF is forcing El Salvador to drop Bitcoin as a national currency. The same US administration that proposed creating a "national digital asset stockpile"??!? (per https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/trump-signs-executive-order-... )
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1. AnthonyMouse ◴[04 Feb 25 06:59 UTC] No.42929013{4}[source]▶
The IMF agreement requiring them to do this was from December, i.e. the prior US administration.
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2. roenxi ◴[04 Feb 25 07:04 UTC] No.42929052[source]▶
And, regardless, "you do this, we do that" in no way unusual for the US's foreign policy. Eg, the US military insists on democracy onshore and is mildly opposed to democracy in the middle east. Neutral at best. Any democracy they like in the ME as long as it never votes for any policy that inconveniences the nearest US general.
3. dragonwriter ◴[04 Feb 25 15:54 UTC] No.42933988[source]▶
The IMF isn't run by the US any more than it is run by Russia or any of the other major members (those that have their own executive-director rather than being in a group that together shares one.)
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4. AnthonyMouse ◴[04 Feb 25 22:37 UTC] No.42940065[source]▶
"Large international banking things have strong ties to large governments" is kind of a weird thing to dispute.

Try starting an independent one if you think otherwise.