7 ms·

I know I will get downvoted for this, but 1. El Salvator did not loose money. Those are unrealized “losses”, 2. market cycles are normal and expected, if you t

I know I will get downvoted for this, but 1. El Salvator did not loose money. Those are unrealized “losses”, 2. market cycles are normal and expected, if you thought “crypto will only go up from here”, you are delusional, 3. Bukele just needs to be patient, the fundamentals did not change. They still own 2301 BTC, and there still won’t ever be more than 21 Million. Adoption, hashrate, use cases, etc. all improved, and continue to do so. There will be another market cycle.

headsoup 4y ago
Unless there isn't of course. If the bad actors are taken out Bitcoin may never reach the value required to recover the losses. That risk is real, and I'm not sure El Salvador can just hodl forever
enlyth 4y ago
>there still won't ever be more than 21 Million Artificial scarcity does not imply value, I can create a token from thin air, make the supply only 3 tokens, and start saying it will gain value because there will only ever be three tokens. Also it's arbitrarily divisible to a lot of decimal points so that argument makes even less sense.
- kebman 4y ago
  Your argument defeats itself because there obviously is a demand for Bitcoin that is large enough to prompt entire countries to adopt it as legal tender. As such it obviously has value. What traders disagree about is how high that value should be compared to other things. Notice for instance how fewer and fewer people are interested in selling Bitcoin the lower it goes. But I bet you'd love to get people to believe it's worthless so you can get it at a discount. Again, this proves that Bitcoin indeed has value. As for artificial scarcity; well, artificial or not, at least Bitcoin has scarcity. Obviously artificial trinkets in the form of worthless metal coins, paper notes, or numbers in a bank's database, does not have any meaningful scarcity compared to Bitcoin. Btw, whatever scarcity there is for fiat is also just as artificial, except its rulers and influencers can make as much of it as they like depending on their mood that day. Not so with Bitcoin. Artificial or not, its supply is hard capped at 21 million coins.
  - kebman 4y ago
- cm2187 4y ago
  But the “fundamentals” of your 3 tokens are sound.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    I just realized it is becoming more and more difficult for me to tell if people are being serious or sarcastic.
    - forty 4y ago
      Congrats, you have just discovered Poe's law ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yread 4y ago
  That sounds interesting! Can we see the white paper? And will you offer 20% interest?
- hndamien 4y ago
  It would work equally well with 3 tokens (fundamentally), but the human psychology would differ.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    Human psychology in finance markets is almost as underrated as team interpersonal chemistry in athletics.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      After what we have observed with assets flying to astronomical levels when a worldwide pandemic hit against all common sense, it is amazing that this mantra still exists. My observation is that many people do not respect history, and they only think in terms of how markets behaved during their small lifetime. For example, the Fed dominating markets with a foolish policy of bailing out the poor performers and flooding the market with cheap money and waterfalls of debt has been done by governments in history with catastrophic results.
- knorker 4y ago
  Interesting. How do I invest in your 3-token? Please let me know, as I want to get onboard early. Take my money!
- TekMol 4y ago
  The only easy and secure way you could do that is creating a token on the Ethereum chain. But a new ERC-20 token has so many downsides compared to Bitcoin. To name just one, lets start with the distribution. How would you get your token in as many hands as there are currently Bitcoin holders? There will only be one "digital gold" just like there was just one analog gold. And so far, there is no contender to Bitcoin to be seen anywhere.
Nursie 4y ago
There are no “fundamentals” to change. It’s massively irresponsible for a leader to gamble with his people’s money like this.
- garydevenay 4y ago
  The US currently has $30,395,962,543,534.33 in debt and a GDP of ~$20,953,030,000,000.00 coupled with rising interest rates and record inflation. I think that's the "leader's gamble" to be really concerned about.
  - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    And if you think that's bad look at Japan.
  - rghw35hw3 4y ago
    Has this dynamic led to the US being downgraded amongst its creditors or to a noticeable decrease in demand for US debt?
  - rtpg 4y ago
    What? The US can print dollars. It controls the funny money. Yes there are things that happen when they do that, but it is functionally impossible for the US to run out of dollars.
    - berkes 4y ago
      By this reasoning, it's irresponsible for a leader of a country that is not the US, to pin its economy on this "funny money" that it cannot print, but that others can. Which is what El Salvador did untill recently. They still do, but no longer exclusively.
      - rtpg 4y ago
        Turns out that having full control of fiscal policy that can be coordinated with other policy decisions is a good idea for a nation!
puranjay 4y ago
> There will be another market cycle. While I wouldn't bet against it, there is a high likelihood that BTC was a product of the same funny money it was meant to counter. Whether it can sustain its value in the absence of massive QE remains to be seen,
ohgodplsno 4y ago
You're right, I did downvote you because that's an awful take. 1/ In the same way that as long as I don't sell my GME share it's an unrealized loss. It's something I can afford to do as an individual because I can throw a hundred bucks away for the lulz. It's another thing to be a country and to make Bitcoin a mandatorily accepted currency and gamble your people's money away for the lulz. 2/ You've seen how cryptocurrency has behaved in the past ten years, and you think "market cycles" are a thing, in this domain ? There is nothing cyclic about cryptocurrency prices. There is nothing rational about these prices. It'll go back up the next time there's a successful scam managing to raise enough money to buy 2 minutes of Matt Damon telling you you're a limp dick for not putting it all in $LUNA, but it'll still be propped by nothing. 3/ "The fundamentals are here" is peak crypto apologist in denial speak. There are no fundamentals to bitcoin's current price, aside from "funny computer money goes up". All of Bitcoin's current value is propped up by speculation, lies (mmmh delicious unbacked Tether being a massive cause for the rise of its value).
- pontus 4y ago
  It's amazing to see people on both sides of this debate speak with such intense and unapologetic certainty. In 10 years or so one side will be found correct and say things like "I told you so, this was obvious from the beginning. People were just sheep!".
SilverBirch 4y ago
I think the obvious counter to this is that El Salvador has an $800m bond maturing in Jan '23. It's all well and good to say that El Salvador hasn't lost money yet, but it has to pay debts that are denominated in dollars. Currently, the implied probability of default on that bond is 65% according to Reuters. Now, what is El Salvador's plan to pay that debt? They're going to issue a new billion dollar Bitcoin backed bond. What do they say the yeild of this bond will be? According to the developer of the financial instrument - 146% Yield. The attempts to issue the bond have continually stalled. Who do you think is going to pour money into that with the crypto market in it's current state? It doesn't matter if you think Bitcoin is going to eventually change the world, because El Salvador can't stay solvent long enough to see that happen. They're going to default on their debts and there's no fucking way the IMF is going to step in whilst El Salvador is doing this ridiculous stuff. So the actual citizens of El Salvador are about to face a massive economic problem.

headsoup 4y ago

Unless there isn't of course. If the bad actors are taken out Bitcoin may never reach the value required to recover the losses. That risk is real, and I'm not sure El Salvador can just hodl forever

enlyth 4y ago

>there still won't ever be more than 21 Million Artificial scarcity does not imply value, I can create a token from thin air, make the supply only 3 tokens, and start saying it will gain value because there will only ever be three tokens. Also it's arbitrarily divisible to a lot of decimal points so that argument makes even less sense.

kebman 4y ago
Your argument defeats itself because there obviously is a demand for Bitcoin that is large enough to prompt entire countries to adopt it as legal tender. As such it obviously has value. What traders disagree about is how high that value should be compared to other things. Notice for instance how fewer and fewer people are interested in selling Bitcoin the lower it goes. But I bet you'd love to get people to believe it's worthless so you can get it at a discount. Again, this proves that Bitcoin indeed has value. As for artificial scarcity; well, artificial or not, at least Bitcoin has scarcity. Obviously artificial trinkets in the form of worthless metal coins, paper notes, or numbers in a bank's database, does not have any meaningful scarcity compared to Bitcoin. Btw, whatever scarcity there is for fiat is also just as artificial, except its rulers and influencers can make as much of it as they like depending on their mood that day. Not so with Bitcoin. Artificial or not, its supply is hard capped at 21 million coins.
- kebman 4y ago
cm2187 4y ago
But the “fundamentals” of your 3 tokens are sound.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  I just realized it is becoming more and more difficult for me to tell if people are being serious or sarcastic.
  - forty 4y ago
    Congrats, you have just discovered Poe's law ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yread 4y ago
That sounds interesting! Can we see the white paper? And will you offer 20% interest?
hndamien 4y ago
It would work equally well with 3 tokens (fundamentally), but the human psychology would differ.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  Human psychology in finance markets is almost as underrated as team interpersonal chemistry in athletics.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    After what we have observed with assets flying to astronomical levels when a worldwide pandemic hit against all common sense, it is amazing that this mantra still exists. My observation is that many people do not respect history, and they only think in terms of how markets behaved during their small lifetime. For example, the Fed dominating markets with a foolish policy of bailing out the poor performers and flooding the market with cheap money and waterfalls of debt has been done by governments in history with catastrophic results.
knorker 4y ago
Interesting. How do I invest in your 3-token? Please let me know, as I want to get onboard early. Take my money!
TekMol 4y ago
The only easy and secure way you could do that is creating a token on the Ethereum chain. But a new ERC-20 token has so many downsides compared to Bitcoin. To name just one, lets start with the distribution. How would you get your token in as many hands as there are currently Bitcoin holders? There will only be one "digital gold" just like there was just one analog gold. And so far, there is no contender to Bitcoin to be seen anywhere.

Nursie 4y ago

There are no “fundamentals” to change. It’s massively irresponsible for a leader to gamble with his people’s money like this.

garydevenay 4y ago
The US currently has $30,395,962,543,534.33 in debt and a GDP of ~$20,953,030,000,000.00 coupled with rising interest rates and record inflation. I think that's the "leader's gamble" to be really concerned about.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  And if you think that's bad look at Japan.
- rghw35hw3 4y ago
  Has this dynamic led to the US being downgraded amongst its creditors or to a noticeable decrease in demand for US debt?
- rtpg 4y ago
  What? The US can print dollars. It controls the funny money. Yes there are things that happen when they do that, but it is functionally impossible for the US to run out of dollars.
  - berkes 4y ago
    By this reasoning, it's irresponsible for a leader of a country that is not the US, to pin its economy on this "funny money" that it cannot print, but that others can. Which is what El Salvador did untill recently. They still do, but no longer exclusively.
    - rtpg 4y ago
      Turns out that having full control of fiscal policy that can be coordinated with other policy decisions is a good idea for a nation!

puranjay 4y ago

> There will be another market cycle. While I wouldn't bet against it, there is a high likelihood that BTC was a product of the same funny money it was meant to counter. Whether it can sustain its value in the absence of massive QE remains to be seen,

ohgodplsno 4y ago

You're right, I did downvote you because that's an awful take. 1/ In the same way that as long as I don't sell my GME share it's an unrealized loss. It's something I can afford to do as an individual because I can throw a hundred bucks away for the lulz. It's another thing to be a country and to make Bitcoin a mandatorily accepted currency and gamble your people's money away for the lulz. 2/ You've seen how cryptocurrency has behaved in the past ten years, and you think "market cycles" are a thing, in this domain ? There is nothing cyclic about cryptocurrency prices. There is nothing rational about these prices. It'll go back up the next time there's a successful scam managing to raise enough money to buy 2 minutes of Matt Damon telling you you're a limp dick for not putting it all in $LUNA, but it'll still be propped by nothing. 3/ "The fundamentals are here" is peak crypto apologist in denial speak. There are no fundamentals to bitcoin's current price, aside from "funny computer money goes up". All of Bitcoin's current value is propped up by speculation, lies (mmmh delicious unbacked Tether being a massive cause for the rise of its value).

pontus 4y ago
It's amazing to see people on both sides of this debate speak with such intense and unapologetic certainty. In 10 years or so one side will be found correct and say things like "I told you so, this was obvious from the beginning. People were just sheep!".

SilverBirch 4y ago

I think the obvious counter to this is that El Salvador has an $800m bond maturing in Jan '23. It's all well and good to say that El Salvador hasn't lost money yet, but it has to pay debts that are denominated in dollars. Currently, the implied probability of default on that bond is 65% according to Reuters. Now, what is El Salvador's plan to pay that debt? They're going to issue a new billion dollar Bitcoin backed bond. What do they say the yeild of this bond will be? According to the developer of the financial instrument - 146% Yield. The attempts to issue the bond have continually stalled. Who do you think is going to pour money into that with the crypto market in it's current state? It doesn't matter if you think Bitcoin is going to eventually change the world, because El Salvador can't stay solvent long enough to see that happen. They're going to default on their debts and there's no fucking way the IMF is going to step in whilst El Salvador is doing this ridiculous stuff. So the actual citizens of El Salvador are about to face a massive economic problem.