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El Salvador is quite literally becoming a case study confirming everything we already know about cryptocurrencies: the average person understands it more than y

El Salvador is quite literally becoming a case study confirming everything we already know about cryptocurrencies: the average person understands it more than you realize and they see zero value in it. The two most frequent reasons for not using BTC/Chivo being price volatility and not wanting to be tracked by their government. Above all, one thing is clear: the most successful part of this was the fact that the state provided essentially a free bank account; most people are choosing to bank USD and not BTC in Chivo! On top of this, the majority are either not transacting in BTC or are transacting in BTC and immediately converting to USD. This is a total failure for the cryptocurrency side of things but a rousing success for the fiat side as you could easily remove the entirety of the BTC functionality and still have a working app. It might even do better this way! It's been repeated over and over again that cryptocurrencies will bank the unbanked, but it's abundantly clear now that cryptocurrencies are absolutely not a requirement for achieving this. If private industry is not going to provide a market solution to the unbanked, let El Salvador show that a government can easily accommodate in its place.

mekster 4y ago
Why do I feel you have emotional attachment to cryptocurrency failure?
- Proven 4y ago
- andirk 4y ago
  Such is HN when it comes to crypto. Every other topic is dissected objectively with little or no bias. My only guess is because bitcoin is a purely technical implementation of something powerful (money), and a lot of highly technical people watched it walk right by them again and again and again.
datadata 4y ago
> the average person understands it more than you realize and they see zero value in it. The two most frequent reasons for not using BTC/Chivo being price volatility and not wanting to be tracked by their government. The article literally has a graph where 62% of the people surveyed here agree with using Chivo. Of the 38% who don't, 40% of them cite not understanding bitcoin as a reason. Volatility and trust are also reasons, but it is disingenuous to assert that the average person understands bitcoin and rejects when there is literally data contradicting this, and in fact that the majority of people don't even object to Chivo/BTC at all here. https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Agree-with-Chivo-Wallet.png?trim=1,1&bg-color=000&pad=1,1 https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Agree-w... I find it amusing to expect a resolution here in less than a year for something that has never been attempted before. This is a country where 70% of people had never used a bank account before. If as a counterfactual at this point it was a raging success in terms of replacing USD, critical articles would probably cast things as a mania/bubble poised to fall apart, or cast the adoption as being coerced.

mekster 4y ago

Why do I feel you have emotional attachment to cryptocurrency failure?

Proven 4y ago
andirk 4y ago
Such is HN when it comes to crypto. Every other topic is dissected objectively with little or no bias. My only guess is because bitcoin is a purely technical implementation of something powerful (money), and a lot of highly technical people watched it walk right by them again and again and again.

datadata 4y ago

> the average person understands it more than you realize and they see zero value in it. The two most frequent reasons for not using BTC/Chivo being price volatility and not wanting to be tracked by their government. The article literally has a graph where 62% of the people surveyed here agree with using Chivo. Of the 38% who don't, 40% of them cite not understanding bitcoin as a reason. Volatility and trust are also reasons, but it is disingenuous to assert that the average person understands bitcoin and rejects when there is literally data contradicting this, and in fact that the majority of people don't even object to Chivo/BTC at all here. https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Agree-with-Chivo-Wallet.png?trim=1,1&bg-color=000&pad=1,1 https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Agree-w... I find it amusing to expect a resolution here in less than a year for something that has never been attempted before. This is a country where 70% of people had never used a bank account before. If as a counterfactual at this point it was a raging success in terms of replacing USD, critical articles would probably cast things as a mania/bubble poised to fall apart, or cast the adoption as being coerced.