El Salvador
Despite your feelings on Bitcoin you can likely agree on the following:
Bitcoin is currently volatile, and has been since creation.
El Salvador making Bitcoin the currency is likely to lead to a net accumulation of Bitcoin (Both private and public).
El Salvador made Bitcoin the national currency on September 7th, 2021. As part of this move El Salvador purchased 700 Bitcoin with an avg purchase price of $49,643. They then took this Bitcoin and sent all citizens that downloaded their app “Chivo” $30 worth of Bitcoin.
Below are updates per October 12/13, 2021
The most obvious immediate upside would be remittance fee reduction. just under a quarter of El Salvador’s GDP is based on remittances, which have processing fees ~12.5%. I have to imagine an extra 400MM in the pockets of El Salvadorians will be good for the economy.
Will El Salvador break from poverty and be the 21st version of Singapore? Dubai? Places that in a single generation went from fishing villages to global hubs of Finance/culture?
Currently El Salvador is 149 out of 225 countries in PPP per capita, placing it near countries like Guatemala, and the Philippines, which puts them less than half of the global average. For reference it is around 8.7K USD (US is 62.5K). It makes sense that the first country to make Bitcoin the official currency would have the less to lose.
Where will El Salvador be in 5 years? 10 years? 20? If Bitcoin goes up, and El Salvador (and El Salvadorians) continue to accumulate Bitcoin what will the country look like?
-Goob