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1) I'd say that "failure" is an imprecise label for an on-going change. A better label is a "work-in-progress experiment" that hasn't panned out yet. 2) Changi

1) I'd say that "failure" is an imprecise label for an on-going change. A better label is a "work-in-progress experiment" that hasn't panned out yet. 2) Changing the default way of doing business takes time. It took credit cards many years to replace cash and checks as the most common payment methods. There's smart technical people on HN who still barely understand the social and economic implications of crypto despite fully understanding the technology...and most people barely understand anything about crypto. It might take years to start to find traction among a general population. Declaring it done just 1 year into it is very premature. 3) Will it succeed? Who knows, but I'd argue that a country in El Salvador's position is 100% right for taking that approach to their economic development given how difficult it might be to bring industry and business to their country otherwise. 4) I don't follow El Salvador politics too closely, but it seems like their president isn't just a one-trick pony who is only doing the crypto stuff. There's big work there but he's also trying to do stuff to fix crime and corruption and other changes that could help. I've heard mixed results on him, but again I'm not an expert on the country.

wmf 4y ago
If your country is broke, gambling away money on crypto is far from "100% right". There are many different ways besides crypto that El Salvador could attempt to improve their economy.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > If your country is broke, gambling away money on crypto is far from "100% right". I can understand the opposite viewpoint, but to me taking some risky bets makes perfect sense when you're already poor and in a bad position for any kind of realistic improvement in any reasonable timeframe. > There are many different ways besides crypto that El Salvador could attempt to improve their economy. Of course. And as far as I know they are doing some of those things: particularly working on the crime and corruption part of it.
  - el-salvador 4y ago
    >> If your country is broke, gambling away money on crypto is far from "100% right". > I can understand the opposite viewpoint, but to me taking some risky bets makes perfect sense when you're already poor and in a bad position for any kind of realistic improvement in any reasonable timeframe. Taking risky bets would be OK, but very few public information is avaialble. If we had a dashboard that showed the results of the bet, Like what the Norway Investment Fund does, then it would be more transparent (https://www.nbim.no/ https://www.nbim.no/) > > There are many different ways besides crypto that El Salvador could attempt to improve their economy. > Of course. And as far as I know they are doing some of those things: particularly working on the crime and corruption part of it. They may say they are doing that, but in practice, they have hindered the tools citizens had to oversee government spending. Like some government purchases no longer going via the public tender law, or limiting the public information access law, and the head of congress "inviting" local investigative journalists to leave El Salvador and ask asylum in other countries.
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
      > If we had a dashboard that showed the results of the bet, If it doesn't exist, why not be the guy to put together a website tracking that investment? Isn't the actual wallet address out there? Or hasn't somebody at least put together their reported cost basis so you could track it fairly accurately?

wmf 4y ago

If your country is broke, gambling away money on crypto is far from "100% right". There are many different ways besides crypto that El Salvador could attempt to improve their economy.

logicalmonster 4y ago
> If your country is broke, gambling away money on crypto is far from "100% right". I can understand the opposite viewpoint, but to me taking some risky bets makes perfect sense when you're already poor and in a bad position for any kind of realistic improvement in any reasonable timeframe. > There are many different ways besides crypto that El Salvador could attempt to improve their economy. Of course. And as far as I know they are doing some of those things: particularly working on the crime and corruption part of it.
- el-salvador 4y ago
  >> If your country is broke, gambling away money on crypto is far from "100% right". > I can understand the opposite viewpoint, but to me taking some risky bets makes perfect sense when you're already poor and in a bad position for any kind of realistic improvement in any reasonable timeframe. Taking risky bets would be OK, but very few public information is avaialble. If we had a dashboard that showed the results of the bet, Like what the Norway Investment Fund does, then it would be more transparent (https://www.nbim.no/ https://www.nbim.no/) > > There are many different ways besides crypto that El Salvador could attempt to improve their economy. > Of course. And as far as I know they are doing some of those things: particularly working on the crime and corruption part of it. They may say they are doing that, but in practice, they have hindered the tools citizens had to oversee government spending. Like some government purchases no longer going via the public tender law, or limiting the public information access law, and the head of congress "inviting" local investigative journalists to leave El Salvador and ask asylum in other countries.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > If we had a dashboard that showed the results of the bet, If it doesn't exist, why not be the guy to put together a website tracking that investment? Isn't the actual wallet address out there? Or hasn't somebody at least put together their reported cost basis so you could track it fairly accurately?