El Salvador’s decision to make bitcoin legal tender shocked the world. Earlier this week the rapidly-developed and adopted bitcoin law went live, kicking off what seems primed to be an era of accelerated change unlike anything seen in our lifetimes.
Join hosts Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Stephanie Murphy for a quick three part discussion on the launch challenges, implications and listener comments from our previous show on the topic.
First, the launch: It was messy, but it happened. Alex Gladstein had an insightful twitter thread in the days leading up to it (https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1434636006632747009). Matt Ahlborg dug into the day-1 government issued wallet and found a mixed bag, extra controls on the money given out at launch but a fairly robust technological package including native SegWit support and a functional lightning network integration (https://twitter.com/MattAhlborg/status/1435307724774989829)
Second, the implications: This path towards adoption was not what we expected. What El Salvador's move to use bitcoin directly suggests is that dollarized nations, or those who use another countries currency and in doing so become subject to their monetary policy decisions, may prefer bitcoin's non-monetary policy to either domestic or imported control. That's in sharp contrast to nations like India, China and the US who use their currencies and controls over it to accomplish policy goals. These powerful players see central bank digital currencies as a way to supercharge their monetary policy compared to their influence today over physical banknotes.
And finally, the local perspective: We had two listeners write in with corrections to our prior episode (We were incorrect about the reason why El Salvador "dollarized" their economy in 2000, it was billed as a move to lower the cost of borrowing, not because of elevated inflation) along with the many concerns and questions which are still unanswered. You'll find both listeners comments in full linked below.
Links from the episode:
Have any questions or comments? Send us an email at adam@speakingofbitcoin.show
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Today's show featured Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Stephanie Murphy and Adam B. Levine. This episode was edited by Jonas, with music by Jared Rubens and Gurty Beats.
Our album art is based off a photo by Photo by Wilson Edilberto Santana Suarez on Unsplash, modified by Speaking of Bitcoin
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/originalltb/messageA Final Discussion
Update 6/19/2022
SOB #502 When the Referees Play Favorites (Part 1)
SOB #501 When More Is Less
SOB #500 Three Rules to Remember After Mailchimp Breach
SOB #503 The Check Engine Light and the Space Shuttle
SOB #499 New Lessons From the Island of Stone Bitcoins
SOB #498 Rights Versus Privileges in a Global Financial System
Quick SOB Update (More frequent episodes coming... now)
SOB #496 The Ups and Downs of Crypto Loans
SOB #497 A Brief Look at Bitcoin Maximalism
SOB # 495 First Practices Aren’t Best Practices
SOB #494 Bitcoin Security and a Rogue Power Plant
SOB #493 The Endowment Effect, HODLing and the Impossible Self-Appraisal
SOB #492 Can Stablecoins Survive?
SOB #491 The Jokes Wear Thin as Inflation Becomes Normal
SOB #490 Checking in on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network
SOB #489 Big Gaming Signals NFTS Are Closer to Mainstream
SOB #488 How Far We've Come (And How Much Stayed the Same)
SOB #487 If Facebook Can't Run A Global Currency, Who Could?
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