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Comment by imtringued | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if this will prompt the USA to import more products from El Salvador to reduce the size of the remittances sector and thereby lessen the reason people use Bitcoin in the first place.

Before anyone tells the Salvadorians to export more products... they do... and they do it by working in a country that exports to El Salvador.

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I doubt the US government cares enough about this to do much of anything, and I'm not sure how importing more products would even work. Would Congress just buy a bunch of Salvadoran coffee beans?

Traditionally, when people in the US want to reduce remittances, they just campaign to expel the immigrants making the remittances.

That will just lead to a debt crisis down the road.

> will just lead to a debt crisis down the road

Reduced El Salvadorian immigration will lead to a debt crisis?

USA exports $2.8 billion to El Salvador.

El Salvador exports $2 billion to USA.

Where do they get the money to do that? By working in the US. By sending remittances through Bitcoin or conventional means.

Oh, it would lead to a debt crisis for El Salvador. Sure. But why is that something the U.S. would want?

The original claim was the U.S. would want to “lessen the reason people use Bitcoin.” I’m pushing back on there being political will for that end.

I dont think governments work that way

It's true they don't work that way because developed nations want to exploit developing nations rather than cooperate with them to maximize well being in the entire world.

Over the long term it is quite foolish because a debt claim against a weaker country will turn out to be worthless.

> prompt the USA to import more products from El Salvador to reduce the size of the remittances sector and thereby lessen the reason people use Bitcoin

Who in America would benefit from fighting this? Crypto is a real industry. It’s more profitable for the financial sector than similar activity in U.S. dollars. And the Fed doesn’t thoroughly love that it has to take international factors into account when its political mandate is purely domestic.

There is the interventionist foreign policy elite, but they aren’t on strong footing right now. The claim that the U.S. is hellbent on preserving the primacy of the U.S. dollar is largely a myth.

> Crypto is a real industry.

Not really. An industry produces goods and services. What does crypto produce?

> What does crypto produce?

Money. Jobs. Aficionados. “Real” as in it has political heft.

Jobs.

Financial sovereignty

Mining is an industry that processes transactions and prevents double spend

Exchanges are industry that allows people to trade assets

What does the banking industry produce?

Ransomware and money laundering.

>Who in America would benefit from this?

Well, there would be less immigration from Salvador to the USA so basically people concerned about economic refugees. I don't mean this in a xenophobic way. Balanced trade will improve the conditions in El Salvador and thereby let people stay in their home country voluntarily rather than be forced out for economic reasons.

> The claim that the U.S. is hellbent on preserving the primacy of the U.S. dollar is largely a myth.

Could you elaborate, please? It was my understanding (perhaps mistakenly) that because so many foreign entities, be they countries, corporations etc, depend on the USD and it functions both as a reserve and for international trading, the U.S. Federal Reserve can be more aggressive with "dovish" policy.

Or stated another way, if fewer people/institutions held USD abroad, the risk of inflation would be much greater.

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