Short term profits might come, not from money laundering, but from bitcoin whales that are true believers and decide to come live there. Some of those whales might have gotten their bitcoin illegally, and are happy to avoid a fiat off-ramp. I suppose that might be money-laundering in some sense.
My statement about money laundering is their attempt to fix it partially. But Bitcoin by itselve won't fix their core issue.
Another one is is connectivity ( to make faster payments and not take the bus), bitcoin won't fix that either.
They are pushing internet access to help Bitcoin, but it creates a false dogma. Since Bitcoin was not the answer, it was internet access for all to make faster payments.
PS. Africa has payments by text, this could have worked there too without Bitcoin: https://onereach.ai/what-the-u-s-can-learn-from-mobile-payme...
There's a not entirely implausible theory that says Bukele is going for Bitcoin specifically because El Salvador uses the US dollar and is thus prevented from taking the typical path of printing more its own currency to "solve" problems. With Tether and various dodgy custom apps in the mix, they can now print money.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/15/el-salvador-bitcoin-off...
Bitcoin was made to be deflationary. That means it was made not to allow anyone to print money. It would have made more sense for them to pick ethereum if they wanted the ability to print money.
Really, the only thing I can imagine is using colored coins in bitcoin, or switching to some other currency later.
El Salvador isn't actually giving people Bitcoin. It's giving people records in an SQL database that supposedly correspond to Bitcoin in a government wallet.
The government can just edit that SQL database to print money.
I don't understand. How are you supposed to make money from wealth hoarders? The trickle-down fairy?
Making the wealthy wealthier without taking from the poor will help the poor some. Moreover, it will help the government a lot more.
Proof/evidence for that statement?