• El Salvador will continue buying 1 Bitcoin daily until it becomes unaffordable with fiat currencies
  • President Bukele’s statement highlights commitment to cryptocurrency adoption
  • Move demonstrates belief in Bitcoin’s long-term value and potential as a global currency alternative.
  • j4yt33@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    Imagine your president being a 40yo cryptobro version of Trump. No wonder people are leaving

    • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Bukele and his government is nothing like Trumps. He doesn’t want El Salvador to use USD as the standard currency, that’s it…

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        Which is understandable, but I don’t understand his plan. If 1 BTC is unaffordable, then people will buy 0.1 BTC. If that’s unaffordable, then people will buy 0.01 BTC. And so on. You have to go down to 0.00000001 BTC before the limit is reached (0.000633158 USD at current prices, which is smaller than a mill). Since every zero there is another order of magnitude, I don’t see how a small nation state could make even the smallest BTC unit unaffordable. Maybe the G7 banding together could do it.

    • nixcamic@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I have very mixed feelings about Bukele but nobody is leaving because of him. Salvadorian emigration has slowed greatly under him and many people are actually moving back.

      • BoscoBear@lemmy.sdf.org
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        8 months ago

        It is sad to see people unaware of different conditions in the world. They have this feelings that one set of rules is good for everyone.

          • BoscoBear@lemmy.sdf.org
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            8 months ago

            You are very correct.

            I don’t really want someone who is "tough on crime"in Russia, China or Taiwan , but I can understand why people in Haiti would be in favor of it.

            • Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              For a future in which Bukele unites south America under the banner of zero crime, since our local presidents are just stupid and corrupt and wastes of space.

              • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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                8 months ago

                Politicians have a bad habit of not giving up power. Hopefully, when the time comes, he graciously steps down or works on addressing the rights he had to curtail to do what he’s done.

      • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        There’s no question they’ve arrested innocent people and the prisoners are being treated poorly, but it’s hard to judge when I don’t have to deal with drug cartels/gangs and make their monthly salary in a couple days.

    • ThePrivacyPolicy@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Sadly, that’s also the exact description of who Canada is most likely to elect as their next leader too. “bitcoin millhouse” we call him.

  • yildolw@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    El Salvador Will Keep Putting $71,000 into the President’s Swiss Bank Account Daily

    FTFY

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    It’s tragic for the people of his country that they are being essentially forced into participating in a pyramid scheme

    • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
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      8 months ago

      Yeah, this basically gave away the whole country to the USA, but now with Bitcoin, this is over!

      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        8 months ago

        TBH Bukele is more likely to steal the country’s finances than the USA. The USA doesn’t have the power to seize decentralized currency from across the equator, at least not without empowering the CIA but every time we do that they destabilize a region, create a theocracy, or trick us into another war so we’re getting pretty sick of their shit.

  • neutron@thelemmy.club
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    8 months ago

    Whatever your thoughts on cryptocurrency might be, this is borderline gambling addiction.

  • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
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    8 months ago

    …El Salvador has decided to transfer a large chunk of its bitcoin holdings to a cold wallet and store it in a physical vault

    What are we up to now, like Ocean’s 15 or something?

  • notfromhere@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    If this is legit and not corruption and bitcoin eventually takes off to ungodly levels, imagine the biggest bet in history paying off and their country turns around as an economic powerhouse. Risky and stupid but would make a good movie.

    • Buttons@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      The only thing keeping them a powerhouse would be a number on a computer that can be stolen. Question is, would people try to steal from a nation rich enough to be a powerhouse and how sophisticated would those theft attempts be?

      • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
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        8 months ago

        That number is protected the same way gold is. Reminds me you americans stole us 1000 tons of gold during ww2

        • Buttons@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          That’s my point. If a country really did build up enough Bitcoin it became a world power, those Bitcoin would probably be stolen. If it can happen to gold, it can happen to Bitcoin even easier.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            It’s ability to be stolen really comes down to was the password to it ever written down or did they not use a password.

            If they didn’t write it down, you could conceivably keep it safe from theft as long as the people that know the password don’t give it up if tortured.

            Also breaking it up into multiple wallets with different passwords that not everyone knows would limit a complete theft.

            Edit: in the scenario where it can’t be stolen, killing everyone that knows the password would still leave the country with nothing though.

            • Buttons@programming.dev
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              8 months ago

              It has to be easy enough to move the Bitcoins that it can be done when needed. For example, if you split the password up among too many people, then you could “disappear” one of those people and then the Bitcoins suddenly cease to exist (or practically so).

              So there’s a balance. If it’s easy to move the Bitcoins, then a thief can find a way to move all the Bitcoins into their own wallet. Or, if it’s very difficult to move the Bitcoins, then an adversary can find a way to make it impossible to move the Bitcoins, essentially destroying them.

            • dutchkimble@lemy.lol
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              8 months ago

              I think they should do something dramatic like having a room where the NOC List was stored, but with an air vent on the door instead of the ceiling.

          • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
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            8 months ago

            Why faster? The gold was in a ship because the gold had to be carried, which isn’t the case with bitcoin. If there is no ship you can steal, you won’t get anything

            • Buttons@programming.dev
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              8 months ago

              If I can steal your cryptographic key (a number), I can write to the Bitcoin ledger “I Mubelotix give Buttons840 all my Bitcoin”, and then it’s done, the transaction is complete, it’s written on the immutable public ledger with your own private key. If I can get your private key then I can take all your Bitcoin and you cannot stop me, nobody can, no court, no nation.

              What I’m saying is that if a country did built up a world altering amount of Bitcoins, a James Bond 007 Super Secret Agent Man would come and steal the cryptographic key associated with your Bitcoins and as soon as they have that it’s over, all your Bitcoin are gone.

              • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
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                8 months ago

                Sure but it’s easy to secure cryptophic keys. Way easier than securing 1000 moving tons of gold

                • Buttons@programming.dev
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                  8 months ago

                  Is it? Like, when any one of the people with access to the key has a standing offer of 1 billion dollars and a life a luxury in another country, are you sure none of them will take the offer? What about when their families are threatened? What about when they get kidnapped and hit with a wrench?

                  I’m just saying, if we’re talking about so much Bitcoin that it alone makes a country a world power, that’s enough Bitcoin that things have moved beyond law and order and is in the ugly and dangerous realm of war and espionage.

    • deafboy@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I really wish for them to hit the jackpot and break the cycle, but so far, everything valuable in the region was quickly turned into poverty and famine. It’s like a bad magic trick.

  • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    Then why do they tell everyone about it?

    Seems like a way to pump the price up just by press and not actually wanting to anything.

    • deafboy@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Move the price? Talk is cheap… and so is 1 BTC per year.

      This is just Bukele craving some attention. I hate the term attention whore, but can’t find a better description.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Talk is cheap… and so is 1 BTC per year

        luckily it said they’re going to buy 1 per day. There are several days in an average year.

          • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            It’s spelled embarrass, you wrote ‘emberass’; would that be like someone who sits on hot coals?

          • drislands@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Relatable. In our rush to say the clever thing we’re thinking, we don’t stop to double check that we read it correctly in the first place. I’ve been guilty of that too many times…

  • daniskarma@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    And what happens if the government needs that money and Bitcoin price is down?

    I don’t see how putting national reserves on such an inestable “asset” would be a good idea.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Worse, what happens if cybercriminals are able to successfully steal a large number of the countries bitcoin, or if they somehow lose access to their bitcoin wallet(s)?

      • Babalugats@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        He said ‘until it’s unaffordable’ I guess he’s using reserves like the way the US does on weapons and military, some of which isn’t even for them.

        He’s investing in what he believes is a profitable investment. I’m guessing that he has financial advice from people that have studied this to a level that can understand it better than most people, and consider it a sound investment. With the intention at the other end being to use for the country. Everything accounted for, nothing going into senators back pockets, could be used to boost their health service and hospitals and whatever else. With countries less built up currently looking more favourable in the future, they’re already in a good position.

  • Tetsuo@jlai.lu
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    8 months ago

    And then some hacker will get into that wallet and empty it.

    The presidency will act all shocked at the news pretending they did everything to secure it…

  • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    It’s kinda hilarious that the soft dictatorship and prison state that makes even America look like a prison abolitionist paradise isn’t what’s going to sink this idiot, it’ll be the fucking bitcoins

  • elgordino@fedia.io
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    8 months ago

    What does ‘unaffordable with fiat currencies’ even mean? This guy knows you can divide BTC right?

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      The headline said 1BTC, so I take it to mean “until the price of 1BTC is too high to buy with real money”. They’re not saying they’ll buy $66000 worth of bitcoin per day indefinitely, just 1 whole bitcoin per day, regardless of how the price fluctuates, for as long as that’s viable.

      El Salvador doesn’t have its own currency; they use USD and recently bitcoin. I don’t know enough to say whether this makes sense.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Right but you’re missing the point. It doesn’t matter if 1 BTC costs $1,000,000 when you can just buy 0.0001 BTC for $100. They would need to drive the cost of 1 BTC into the quadrillions of dollars before it would become even remotely unfeasible to purchase.

        • AnagrammadiCodeina@feddit.it
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          8 months ago

          Depends on the budget he decided to put into this.

          At the end it’s investing, he has decided let’s say a budget of 200k per day on this, he will but 1 full btc until the price of 1 btc is 200k. After that probably the money will go on something else.

  • Yrt@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    Even if bitcoin wasn’t just a pyramid scheme and all but right now there are 900 new bitcoins each day, after the next halfing around the corner it’s still 450/day. So each day there will be more new bitcoin then he would buy in 1 year. Even the easiest numbers don’t add up even if he is just a 40yr cryptobro Trump version.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      It has zero purpose as currency support, but makes great sense for money laundering. Whose wallet do you think those bitcoins will end up in?

    • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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      8 months ago

      Just to explain it to people who don’t understand how it works.

      The point of the mining rewards is to make the Bitcoin supply infinite, while giving the price time to rise and Bitcoin to gain adoption. Once that 21m coins is created, no more can be created, so the price should stabilize and rise over time as less and less Bitcoin is around.

      • Yrt@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        I know how bitcoin works. But this cap of 21m will be around 2100 or even later if the mining power stays the same as today. So nobody reading this post will be alive around that time. And the same for El Salvador. Should all the people alive right now suffer, cause in around 100 years a theory of a new way for money could succeed? (And no, I don’t think bitcoin will ever be more than money laundering and daytraiding craziness ending in more money for the people laundering)

        • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          As far as a currency or store of wealth, Bitcoin is shit. Satoshi was/were an idealist(s), and for them it wasn’t about the money, it was about the idea. Decentralized proof of concept that anyone on the internet can access and can’t be censored without extreme global geopolitical cooperation. They chose to make it like a currency (Bitcoin) for adoption purposes, but the mathematical and technical concepts behind it can be used for any transfer of information that needs to be reliable, proven (signed), and decentralized, which makes it ideal for some things we are already using, and concepts we can’t even imagine yet.

          The idea sparked other blockchain concepts such as Monero which is actually designed to be used, like digital cash with tiny fee of pennies, not as a store of wealth or prospecting. It is essentially anonymous as the sender, receiver, and amount are never known except to those with access to the wallets.

          Smart contracts still have a long way to go but have some very interesting uses as well.

          Why does being around in 100 years matter for Bitcoin, though? It’s unlikely that Bitcoin will even be around in 100 years and Satoshi likely knew that or would have made the halving rates longer. Last halving was 2020. In about a month (next halving) block rewards will be halved from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, which puts upward pressure on miners to innovate (find new ways of reducing energy consumption and increasing hashing power), increasing scarcity, and, historically, increasing price.

          • Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de
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            8 months ago

            It’s actually insane how low the Monero fees are, you can make a transaction that takes less than 5 minutes and the fees are gonna be way less than a cent