I was impressed by @nayibbukele's evident intelligence and candor in his recent interview with @PeterMcCormack concerning El Salvador's Bitcoin Law. But his defense of that law's Article 7, which Peter asks about at 40:16, doesn't hold water.
Bukele claims that Article 7, which requires that "Every economic agent...accept bitcoin as payment" for goods or services, "actually protects the people."
He give the example of a pupuseria shop operator from El Zonte who, having earned some Satoshis, goes to buy medicine with them from a pharmacist, only to have the pharmacist insist on payment in dollars. Article 7, Bukele says, will prevent this.
On the other hand, Bukele says, the law's Article 8 will protect the pharmacist in turn, by providing for the "automatic and instant convertibility from bitcoin to USD."
But if the pharmacist can instantly and costlessly convert BTC to USD, so can the pupusa seller. So why not have that seller convert to dollars for the sake of buying medicine at the pharmacy, and leave the pharmacist free to choose his or her preferred payments medium?
In short, far from bolstering the case for Article 7, Article 8 renders both it and article 12, exempting those unequipped to be paid in bitcoin, otiose.
As a secondary point, although Bukele suggests that the pupusa seller represents the 70% of Salvadorans who are unbanked, while the pharmacist represents the other 30%, But appears, on the contrary, that thus far most Salvadorans would rather be paid in dollars.
Popular opposition has already compelled Bukele to abandon his plan to pay government workers' salaries in bitcoin. explica.co/cryptocurrency…
And the Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce's recent survey suggests that the overwhelming majority of Salvadorans would rather not be required to accept bitcoin in payments. explica.co/salvadoran-bus…
Finally, despite all the effort there to promote the use of bitcoin, even many of El Zonte's small business operators would rather be paid in dollars: reuters.com/business/el-sa…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
