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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

I'll trust a press release from The Muppets before I take a recommendation from the IMF seriously.

While I don't disagree that IMF recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt, they're hardly the only people speaking out to say this is a bad idea. There has been mass protest against the adoption of Bitcoin across the country citing fears around the stability of the cryptocurrency.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58579415

There have not been “mass” protests. They have been quite small. And a large chunk of those protestors are countryside people paid by US funded NGOs. I’ve been to ES multiple times recently. The fact is most people there are ambivalent about Bitcoin and don’t have a strong opinion about it.

Most people are ignorant about Bitcoin and its risks; The fact that there are no protests should come as a surprise to no one.

What people see is that they get free money from the government and maybe they’re lucky to see it go up. They don’t know it could be half tomorrow.

> I’ve been to ES multiple times recently. The fact is most people there are ambivalent about Bitcoin and don’t have a strong opinion about it.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-n...

> SAN SALVADOR, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Most Salvadorans disagree with the government's decision to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, with many unaware of how to use the digital currency and distrustful of the project, a poll by the Central American University (UCA) showed on Thursday.

> At least 67.9% of 1,281 people surveyed said they disagree or strongly disagree with the use of bitcoin as a legal tender, said the poll by UCA, a Jesuit university based in El Salvador. Just over 32% of people said they agree on some level.

Seems the majority of people disagree with this action.

> And a large chunk of those protestors are countryside people paid by US funded NGOs.

That's a broad claim, of which I don't find any evidence. Do you have references here?

I actually agree with you. I just think that an IMF recommendation against using non-dollar-backed currency is hysterical, because of course they'd think that's a bad idea. They rely on adjusting inflation to exacerbate their own wealth, and when decentralized currency gets into the mix, it obviously complicates matters.

Cryptocurrency as a primary method of transaction is 31 flavors of Baskin-Robin disaster. That doesn't make it any less funny when the IMF is complaining about a loss of control.

The Muppets don't have a big stick to wield in the form of advising their member states to withhold aid, commerce, etc...

IMF already did that to El Salvador, they just weren't expecting the president to respond with a countermove.

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