Which Country Will Make Bitcoin Legal Tender Next? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Which Country Will Make Bitcoin Legal Tender Next?

1019 sats \ 6 comments \ @gsb_craig89 18 Nov 2021 bitcoin freebie

On June 8th, 2021, El Salvador passed The Bitcoin Law - granting Bitcoin the status of legal tender.

Many speculated on what this decision would mean for El Salvador, Bitcoin, and indeed cryptocurrency in general. However, the question this article will seek to address is:

Why El Salvador?

Of all the countries in the world who could have switched to Bitcoin as legal tender - what unique factors made El Salvador the world's first country to officially recognize Bitcoin as legal tender?

Reason #1: A leader with wide reaching power

Nayib Bukele has been a controversial leader since taking power On June 1st, 2019. Proponents have argued he has helped clean up El Salvador by being hard on crime, while also helping to secure a (comparatively) high number of vaccines for his citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics have slammed his anti-abortion views, as well as his seemingly authoritarian style of leadership.

Regardless of your opinion of him, Bukele has a tremendous amount of individual power and influence over the decisions his country makes. This makes a radical idea such as adopting Bitcoin as one's legal tender much easier than a country which relies on a series of checks and balances, or partisan agreement.

Reason #2: Not a 1st world country

Many 1st world countries have the benefit of having a (relatively) stable currency. Countries like Canada, Japan, the USA and the UK may go up or down comparatively to other countries, but they can rely on their currency to remain relatively stable as an accepted medium of exchange.

However, countries who suffer from hyper-inflation - or who may potentially suffer from hyper-inflation may be more likely to adopt a cryptocurrency as legal tender to hedge against runaway inflation, or their currency losing power on the global stage. While this 'bet' may seem wise - detractors point to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency's volatility as reasons why it is actually not a wise policy.

So which country might be next?

If we take these 'ingredients' into account, countries which spring to mind include Cuba, fellow Central American neighbours Nicaragua and Guatemala, as well as Venezuela. It will remain to be seen how China's banning of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will affect Asian countries from adopting Bitcoin.

Please feel free to share your own predictions for which country may grant Bitcoin legal tender status as well!

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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @abetusk 18 Nov 2021

Both of the reasons you state have been things I've heard, so it seems reasonable but I think there are many other factors and I would hesitate to waive my hands and declare those as the biggest two.

For example, Bitcoin Beach was pretty influential, providing advocacy and a test bed for Bitcoin usage and adoption. I imagine they also did quite a bit of lobbying. Maybe they even were listened to more because of their economic success?

Also, from reading Wikipedia, it looks like El Salvador was the worlds leader in remittances (per capita) from abroad, which is a major use case of Bitcoin in its current form.

So, just as likely as reasons #1 and #2 listed above, there could be a "Reason #3: Strong Lobbyist Presence, Including A Community That Is Piloting Adoption" and "Reason #4: Substantial Remittances From Abroad".

I certainly don't know and I feel pretty ignorant when it comes to how adoption actually played out in El Salvador. I would love to hear from someone more knowledgeable than myself on what actually happened to make it a reality.

In terms of other countries, there's been quite a few articles. Here are a few that I've found just Googling:

Some countries that keep coming up are: Brazil, Panama, Cuba, Ukraine. Countries that have high adoption that I don't hear about so much: Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines (src).

There were rumors of Brazil making Bitcoin legal tender, but it looks like those are mostly false and they're just trying to just regulate Bitcoin.

Vietnam is apparently extremely high in adoption and I'm failing to see why. Maybe something about China banning mining and miners moving to Vietnam? Some other reason based on mining and cheap electricity with access to hardware? I really have no idea.

2 sats \ 2 replies \ @relc 18 Nov 2021

brazil

2 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 18 Nov 2021

I have the same feeling, not sure why. And will be a damn surprise for the rest of the world, because is a real game changer. Brazil is massive.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @relc 18 Nov 2021

i read there was a bill to make it official in b.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 19 Nov 2021

I found this article by @thevladcostea a pretty good survey of the factors at play; I believe he has a degree in International Relations so a nice foundation to reason from.

I'm personally rooting for Iran because I'm half-Persian but they aren't very politically reasonable so I find it pretty unlikely.

I think smaller mostly dollarized countries with benevolent dictatorish leaders (like El Salvador) are most likely to make the shift - they can unilaterally make the decision and they don't have anything to lose. Any country with an existing currency would have to be interested in relinquishing that power which is implausible.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SaToSHiWoMaN 4 Mar outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.