[jerry1979]

People in El Salvador will simply have the free choice to put their money into BTC. If people in El Salvador make or lose a bit of money because they diversify their exposure, will they not have contributed to the overall price signal process of the free market? Why is it bad to give people options?

[clpm4j]

I wonder what percentage of people in El Salvador have enough money to "put into BTC". Wouldn't most of the poor population be living essentially hand to mouth and spending their meager amount of money on daily food and shelter?

[thehappypm]

Yep, impoverished people can't acquire BTC to begin with. This doesn't help at all.

[season2episode3]

On the question of principles vs practicals... the principles sound great and all. I also appreciate that this takes advantage of the large number of mobile devices already out there, and encourages the development of rural internet.

But, I predict that the practicals are not going to be good. Bitcoin transaction fees are high. If anything, this is a gift to large criminal organizations with a large footprint in the country which will be far more able to make use of their BTC. The law enforcement arm of this will not be ready or able to deal with it.

There is a role for cryptocurrency in helping the underserved gain access to banking. This plan does not sound like the right one to me.