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The Bitcoin Crash Is Taking El Salvador's Big Bet with It

54 points by melling 4y ago

anony999 4y ago
I can't blame El Salvador for trying to get rich...They acted like a retail investor. The crash is painful. That being said 50% crash on "its currency" may not be uncommon. I believe Turkey's currency has had a similar devaluation.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Turkey got to spend the money first though
- kylebenzle 4y ago
  El Salvador's sweatheart deal was FAR from anything anyone in "retail" could ask for. They NEVER would have gotten into Bitcoin had Blockstream's Samson Mow not been able to fenagel a deal to sell them BTC at a 75% discount. Ask yourself, why was this all overseen by the private company Blockstream? Why was El Salvador pushed by Samson Mow and his employeer, Blockstream to issue these "Bitcoin Bonds?" The basic deal is that Bitfinex owns both Blockstream and Tether and uses the later to pump the former. Tether needs a nation state's help to look legitimate. So Tether printed and sold fresh USDT to El Salvador for $0.25 to the dollar (or even cheaper). El Salvador used the USDT to buy Bitcoin and then issued goveerment bonds backed by thoes Bitcoin. You might think Tether is losing selling USDT for $0.25, but remember this is not actaully $1 USD, this is $1 USDT. Tether benefits more from increasing money velocity and supply more than they lose by inflating their scam token. Blockstream's Adam Back helps promote Tether and maintain the Bitcoin Core GitHub repo to make sure BTC is unusable as peer-to-peer digital cash which pushes people to stable coins and competing networks, like Blockstream's own "Liquid, lBTC" token.
  - pyinstallwoes 4y ago
    Wow that … is quite the big if true story. Adds a lot to the tether narrative.
  - cryptozone 4y ago
    > Blockstream's Adam Back helps promote Tether and maintain the Bitcoin Core GitHub repo to make sure BTC is unusable as peer-to-peer digital cash Not what you'd expect from the most convincing candidate of Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity [1]. [1] https://chainbulletin.com/the-unmasking-satoshi-aftermath/ https://chainbulletin.com/the-unmasking-satoshi-aftermath/
- Proven 4y ago
- el-salvador 4y ago
  > That being said 50% crash on "its currency" may not be uncommon. I believe Turkey's currency has had a similar devaluation It had never happened in El Salvador though. The USD and the former currency were stable for decades.
cyphertruck 4y ago
I always find these kinds of articles hilarious. Its fun to go back and look at the ones when bitcoin died at $12k, or $3k, or $1k, or $300, and nobody can forget the terrible drop from $100 to $20! If your time horizon is a year, bitcoin isn’t for you. Bitcoin is the hardest money known to man, but not everyone heeds that and there are tradeoffs. If you look at bitcoins price history, %95 of the time— maybe %99! - it’s down from its all time high. But buying at the exact peak is even harder than buying at the exact bottom. But places like vice assume that’s what everyone did. Or that El Salvador isn’t continuing to buy. Dollar Cost Averaging is the way to go. Don’t be expecting bitcoin to hit any particular price target at any point. I for one just started out buying the equivalent of real actual monetary inflation as a percentage of my net worth. Until my net worth was too high to keep doing that. El Salvador is booming. Bitcoin is unlocking value in its economy that have nothing to do with sitting in the government treasury.
- adammarples 4y ago
  Continuing to buy? They're pretty much insolvent and missing their own debt payments. They don't have money to buy.
  - el-salvador 4y ago
    Not yet... It might happen in the future but it has not happened yet.
exploding_water 4y ago
No one who is this serious about Bitcoin such as El Salvador is here to make a quick buck with Bitcoin unlike what the general population thinks. They are here to play the very long game of HODLING their bitcoins until everyone else starts to gradually adopt it around the world, driving up demand until suddenly it becomes extremely valuable. We have seen this when Bitcoin first came out. Because it is one of the hardest moneys known to man. Bitcoin is still in its gradual phase though. This articles about Bitcoin losing value are missing the bigger picture. It’s expected that this will happen during its infancy so it actually doesn’t matter at this point in time if it goes up or down. Give it time to breathe lol.

54 points by melling 4y ago

I can't blame El Salvador for trying to get rich...They acted like a retail investor. The crash is painful. That being said 50% crash on "its currency" may not be uncommon. I believe Turkey's currency has had a similar devaluation.

oneoff786 4y ago
Turkey got to spend the money first though
kylebenzle 4y ago
El Salvador's sweatheart deal was FAR from anything anyone in "retail" could ask for. They NEVER would have gotten into Bitcoin had Blockstream's Samson Mow not been able to fenagel a deal to sell them BTC at a 75% discount. Ask yourself, why was this all overseen by the private company Blockstream? Why was El Salvador pushed by Samson Mow and his employeer, Blockstream to issue these "Bitcoin Bonds?" The basic deal is that Bitfinex owns both Blockstream and Tether and uses the later to pump the former. Tether needs a nation state's help to look legitimate. So Tether printed and sold fresh USDT to El Salvador for $0.25 to the dollar (or even cheaper). El Salvador used the USDT to buy Bitcoin and then issued goveerment bonds backed by thoes Bitcoin. You might think Tether is losing selling USDT for $0.25, but remember this is not actaully $1 USD, this is $1 USDT. Tether benefits more from increasing money velocity and supply more than they lose by inflating their scam token. Blockstream's Adam Back helps promote Tether and maintain the Bitcoin Core GitHub repo to make sure BTC is unusable as peer-to-peer digital cash which pushes people to stable coins and competing networks, like Blockstream's own "Liquid, lBTC" token.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Wow that … is quite the big if true story. Adds a lot to the tether narrative.
- cryptozone 4y ago
  > Blockstream's Adam Back helps promote Tether and maintain the Bitcoin Core GitHub repo to make sure BTC is unusable as peer-to-peer digital cash Not what you'd expect from the most convincing candidate of Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity [1]. [1] https://chainbulletin.com/the-unmasking-satoshi-aftermath/ https://chainbulletin.com/the-unmasking-satoshi-aftermath/
Proven 4y ago
el-salvador 4y ago
> That being said 50% crash on "its currency" may not be uncommon. I believe Turkey's currency has had a similar devaluation It had never happened in El Salvador though. The USD and the former currency were stable for decades.

cyphertruck 4y ago

I always find these kinds of articles hilarious. Its fun to go back and look at the ones when bitcoin died at $12k, or $3k, or $1k, or $300, and nobody can forget the terrible drop from $100 to $20! If your time horizon is a year, bitcoin isn’t for you. Bitcoin is the hardest money known to man, but not everyone heeds that and there are tradeoffs. If you look at bitcoins price history, %95 of the time— maybe %99! - it’s down from its all time high. But buying at the exact peak is even harder than buying at the exact bottom. But places like vice assume that’s what everyone did. Or that El Salvador isn’t continuing to buy. Dollar Cost Averaging is the way to go. Don’t be expecting bitcoin to hit any particular price target at any point. I for one just started out buying the equivalent of real actual monetary inflation as a percentage of my net worth. Until my net worth was too high to keep doing that. El Salvador is booming. Bitcoin is unlocking value in its economy that have nothing to do with sitting in the government treasury.

adammarples 4y ago
Continuing to buy? They're pretty much insolvent and missing their own debt payments. They don't have money to buy.
- el-salvador 4y ago
  Not yet... It might happen in the future but it has not happened yet.

exploding_water 4y ago

No one who is this serious about Bitcoin such as El Salvador is here to make a quick buck with Bitcoin unlike what the general population thinks. They are here to play the very long game of HODLING their bitcoins until everyone else starts to gradually adopt it around the world, driving up demand until suddenly it becomes extremely valuable. We have seen this when Bitcoin first came out. Because it is one of the hardest moneys known to man. Bitcoin is still in its gradual phase though. This articles about Bitcoin losing value are missing the bigger picture. It’s expected that this will happen during its infancy so it actually doesn’t matter at this point in time if it goes up or down. Give it time to breathe lol.