Crypto celebrities are not heroes, examining the case of El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele
Never be swayed by any prominent crypto celebrity
Image Source
Crypto celebrity Jack Dorsey
We always need to be careful when we idealize any one in general, unless we have seen and interacted with them in person. I emphasize on this, because as crypto enthusiasts we may get influenced by crypto celebrities - you tubers, personalities like Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk etc.
What we must realize here is that a big game is played to influence our decisions via the media's portrayal of the various statements of these celebrities whose aim would be to create hype, so that a particular crypto investment is brought by the public taking the price of that crypto high.
Media stories do play a role in influencing our opinions which in turn influences our judgements. For example, how many of us crypto people have a favourable opinion of El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, because he made Bitcoin legal tender in his country?.
Bukele’s pro crypto figure does not make him a good president of El Salvador
Even to me, Bukele did seem like a hero because in my Indian country, the Government is so damn anti-crypto, but then I remembered that Bukele is a dictator, a villain figure. So, just because Bukele portrays himself to be a hero by championing Bitcoin, proclaiming that he is having El Salvador embrace Bitcoin so Salvadorans benefit from it, the reality of him being a villain does not change.
Recalling, all those mesmerizing things Bukele promised with his pro Bitcoin stance
Taken from twitter profile of Nayib Bukele
I remember Bukele said that he believes Bitcoin will improve the lives of Salvadorans, because most of the Salvadorans are unbanked and US dollar currency is risky with all the inflation, money printing etc.
He also said super exciting things like anyone holding Bitcoin in his country will be exempt from capital gains tax, about his grand plans to build a Bitcoin City, and that Bitcoin businesses will get grand incentives to establish themselves and invest in his country.
He said that Bitcoin Businesses that establish themselves in El Salvador, would be given free accommodation in an area that overlooks the sea etc. More nice news followed with Bukele detailing plans to build a pet hospital out of the profits made from El Salvador’s Bitcoin investments.
Bukele also said that he will promote eco-friendly Bitcoin mining businesses in El Salvador as Bitcoin mining can be done in an environmentally sustainable way by using volcanic power which is available in abundance in El Salvador.
Then there was news that the Government distributed 30$ worth of free bitcoins to every adult El Salvador Citizen which they can avail in their Government controlled Chivo wallets that they should download from the appropriate website.
He also conveyed that people won’t be compelled to hold BTC in Chivo wallet as they are free to hold their cryptos in their own private wallets. Even though people need to accept BTC when paid in BTC, they can easily convert that BTC to US dollars immediately so BTC’s price volatility need not scare people. A Bitcoin trust was also established for this.
Overall, it did look like Bukele’s Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador is designed to be beneficial for its Citizens and El Salvador’s economy as well.
Reality is that Salvadorans don’t feel that El Salvador’s Bitcoin embrace will do them any good
However, there are aspects in this that we did not take into consideration.
Soon, news emerged that many Salvadorians themselves protested against the Bitcoin law, even then it got passed.
There was news that critics of Bukele’s Bitcoin law have been arrested as well, undemocratically. This is nothing new, as this president Bukele is known to arrest people who critique his policies arbitrarily without respecting their human rights.
Now, there is news that El Salvador’s locals are complaining about their Bitcoins just having disappeared from their Chivo wallets.
Tweets from El Comisionado say that there are 50 such instances of Bitcoins vanishing from Salvadoran Chivo wallets!!
Read this news here.
Cases of missing Bitcoins from Government promoted Chivo wallets held by locals
The El Salvador Government has not responded to these missing Bitcoins from Chivo wallet reports of people, and has not acknowledged that there could be any problem with the Chivo wallet.
The Chivo wallet, according to Bitcoin commentator, Rogzy, does not seem to be very secure and this cannot be verified because its code is not open source!!
Can any one imagine that the wallet that El Salvador’s president kept pushing for the public to hold bitcoins on, is not even open source and there are no details about its security that should have been examined by experts. This makes the Chivo wallet a very untrustworthy wallet to hold BTC on!!
Does not look like Bukele has made Bitcoin legal for the welfare of Salvadorans
This fact is more than enough for me to feel that this Bukele is not embracing Bitcoin for doing any good for the welfare of El Salvador’s Citizens, Salvadorans. Perhaps the reason he has made Bitcoin legal tender is because his country can get payments through Bitcoin now and escape the threat of US sanctions if that’s imposed.
Bukele’s bold move in making BTC legal tender in El Salvador without approval of World Bank
Bukele had the cheek to go ahead in making BTC legal tender in his country when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund declined to offer any guidance in the matter as these World’s largest financial institutions stated they do not believe such a move is proper for the stability of the financial system of EL Salvador.
World may think Bukele’s Bitcoin experiment is cool but ultimately he does respect the ethos of Bitcoin which sucks!!
Truely, the crypto world is watching El Salvador, to know how Bukele’s Bitcoin experiment fares, which is interesting. However, one cannot deny that it feels like Bitcoin is in this villain's hands and his intentions cannot be to improve the condition of the Salvadorans through Bitcoin.
He is an autocratic dictator. I don’t take him as a true crypto enthusiast, who respects the true vision of Bitcoin in any way which is to empower people to own wealth and be immune to Government control using the power of decentralised technology.
His intentions for making Bitcoin legal tender are definitely very different.
Thank you for read and a Happy New Year 2022 to all my readers!!
Olala, there are some bold statements in here.
Why is this bad?
Any proof?
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Well, there were enough articles on decrypt and coindesk that showed how despotic this guy is!!
He has currution charges on him and was getting investigation in some court of justice, he just sacked 5 people, judges I guess there.
He arrested several people who criticize his policies, including the Bitcoin law.
US has threathened sanctions because of his curruption charges, and there was an article in coindesk that said he provably made Bitcoin legal tender to escape from sanctions, trade can continue accepting in BTC.
It's too euphoric when he annouced this BTC legal tennder stuff... but its not necessary to make BTC legal tender to allow transactions to happen in BTC and all...this is extreme .
Also news of BTC missing from chivo wallets that are btw not open source, is bad news...
There is news also of how this guy did not care for people during Covid, managed everything badly.
Anyway...
I feel this guy is a villain, who has embraced BTC, its unique but scary too...damn centralised and authoritarian figure this man!!
Also, you can't isolate yourself like that not listening to World Bank... what's the remedy if BTC crashes tommorow, how will El Salvador's financial system sustain, this way this BTC legal tender stuff was indeed a big gamble, anyway!!
World Bank has it's dark sides also, but don't want to go into that.
The BTC mines with green power are being build, that I know from friends working in the engineering.
Also, producing BTC is lit, as it can be a way to drive riches to the country,
Main thing El Salvador lacks is education. People are not literate enough to understand what they need to do, to stay safe from a financial point of view.
I think time will tell if he is a villain or a genius.
Thank you for the reply.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I think, he has been rash. I am no fan of world banks, they have funds Corporate projects that build dams displacing people. So, I absolutely understand they back charactor.
Whatever said, I do feel that its irresponsible to have BTC as legal tender, if it can be damn volatile, and not sure this president made efforts to educate people.
He can be pro btcoin, and crypto in many ways...
It's possible rich whales investment in el Salvador and benifit while the unbanked and poor don't.
even we who are in the space, don't have all our money in BTC, we diversify, and BTC is not a good currency for using for payments. So his legal tender stuff is too extrem I feel.
Thankyou for reading and commenting!!
This post has been manually curated by @bhattg from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
Read our latest announcement post to get more information.
Please contribute to the community by upvoting this comment and posts made by @indiaunited.
This post has been manually curated by @bhattg from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating your Leo power to @india-leo account? We share 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators.
Please contribute to the community by upvoting this comment and posts made by @indiaunited.