• blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    El Salvador apparently invested about $270 million in bitcoin since 2021 and that investment is worth about half a million bucks now. Oh my god, ha, what idiots!

    • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]@hexbear.net
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      20 hours ago

      zane i don’t understand why you dorks are laughing when i advocate for the use of tulips as legal tender. i’ll have you know that i recently cashed out during the height of this latest tulip bubble! you rubes are simply jealous of the treats i can now buy and the very coherent and good point i’m making.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      El Salvador apparently invested about $270 million in bitcoin since 2021 and that investment is worth about half a million bucks now. Oh my god, ha, what idiots!

      … Okay just to clarify, you’re saying they invested $270,000,000 and now it’s worth about $500,000?

      Is there a typo in your comment or something?

      • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        They didn’t buy it all at once. The price dropped between then and now and they were buying. Wikipedia has an entry on it.

        I’m not an expert on El Salvador’s bitcoin, I just know you all sound like a bunch of sore losers.

          • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            You’re all mad because you lost money investing in bitcoin when it was pumping and then selling during a crash. Don’t worry, it’s safe with me.

          • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            I know you’d like to characterize it as dumb luck because that would make you feel better. The reality is that I’ve been making small monthly bitcoin purchases for the better part of a decade as a part of a much larger retirement fund.

            When the btc price hit $100k, I sold most of the initial investment so that now I’m just risking losing part of my gains.

            You can call it lucky and incredibly stupid. I can call it calculated risk.

      • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        I can’t say I understand the bitcoin hate in this thread. I have very real, realized gains.

        Your meme should say, “I love working for minimum wage at Wendy’s”

    • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 day ago

      Ok, can he sell it then? What’s the use of Bitcoin? Why are you valuing it in Dollars? Countries accumulate Dollars and other first world currencies to be able to import more. Bitcoin is sitting there doing nothing.

      Same applies to massive foreign exchange reserves like in the case of China. But still, atleast forex reserves can be quickly used to stabilize the exchange rates.

      • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Yes, he could sell it.

        It’s commonly used as a store of value. When people invest in gold, what’s the use of that? They’re not going to actually use the gold for its physical properties.

        I’m American and the unit of value that I’m most familiar with is dollars. We could convert it into any currency that you’d like. I could have also said simply that their investment had about doubled in value and roughly had the same initial value as about 10 economy cars.

        • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          1 day ago

          Sovereigns aren’t the same as individuals. For sovereign, at the macro level, spending drives consumption and creates employment of real resources.

          If El Salvador had its own currency, they could tax and spend that instead. But no, they use US Dollars.

          • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            19 hours ago

            If El Salvador had its own currency, they could tax and spend that instead. But no, they use US Dollars.

            This is a legit criticism. It’s absolutely wild that these colonized states are completely monetarily subservient to empire. I think they go with bitcoin instead of their own currency, because bitcoin is much harder to destroy/manipulate.

          • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            What’s the point you’re trying to make here? You seem mad about el salvador’s bitcoin experiment. They made a little of money on their little investment.

            • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              1 day ago

              They make no money from the investment you mentioned unless they sell for Dollars. Your stock portfolio gets you no money in form of capital gains unless you liquidate it for Dollars. Same with gold.

              Is El Salvador budget denominated in gold or bitcoin? No, it’s denominated in Dollars.

              El Salvador should first stop using a foreign currency, the dollar. Then worry about trying to attract capital inflows.

              • blandfordforever@lemm.ee
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                1 day ago

                I agree. No currency or store of value has any true value until you go to spend or exchange it. It only has potential value.

                You do realize that Dollars also are also constantly changing in value.

                • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  1 day ago

                  Not really what I said. I said gold and all the commodities are denominated in Dollars.

                  You hold gold because you hope to sell it at a future date for more dollars. You hope China doesn’t find more gold or some country decides to release gold locked in vaults. In the end you want more dollars than you started with.

                  Same with bitcoin which is going up in price because of a flood of Dollars from ETFs and due to Trump’s potential policies. You want bitcoin to go up in price so you can sell it for more dollars.

                  Another thing to keep in mind is that Bitcoin has characteristics of a real asset, not a financial asset.

                  Dollars, you can give to the US Government for payment of taxes etc. There is a corrosponding liability at the Fed. That is not the case with “real” assets like Bitcoin, there is no corrosponding liability.

                  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    19 hours ago

                    I said gold and all the commodities are denominated in Dollars.

                    This not really true and becoming less true every day, as most states realize that the petrol-dollar is not helping anybody.

                    Dollars, you can give to the US Government for payment of taxes etc.

                    What’s the etc here?

                    There is a corrosponding liability at the Fed.

                    There is no actual liability since the petrol-dollar is just paper that they regularly print to prop up their constantly collapsing pyramid scheme.