By Alicia Maher
El Salvador’s decision to embrace Bitcoin has been slammed by Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin, who described the country’s strategy as impulsive in a recent remark he published on r/CryptoCurrency, the biggest cryptocurrency-related community on Reddit. Buterin argues that requiring firms to adopt any cryptocurrency goes against the spirit of the cryptocurrency community.
The Russian-Canadian coder went on to say that Salvadorans are particularly vulnerable to intrusions and frauds due to a major lack of educational standards. And in a follow-up remark, Buterin attacked Bitcoin maximalists, claiming that they are a group that can be easily influenced by powerful allies. Bitcoin maximalists are a relatively easy group to gain the approval of all you need to do is be in a place of authority and do or say good things about them as well as their cryptocurrency.
Buterin Seen as “Salty”
Last month, Buterin lambasted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for trying to re-create autonomous commerce on Bitcoin using “a considerably weaker trust mechanism” than previously existed. His latest views did not go ignored by the cryptocurrency industry, which criticized Buterin for being “salty” and disingenuous in his statements, which he denied.
Give me all of this salt. When authorities all around the globe coerce their populations to adopt fiat money such as the Dollar, hardly anyone seems to notice or object. Once one has forced firms to adopt the greatest free enterprise money that has ever existed, one has created a significant problem. Please, more of this weeping. -Marty Bent (@MartyBent) tweeted on October 8, 2021.
A Ground-Breaking Innovation
El Salvador became the first government to embrace cryptocurrencies as its national currency, making it the first nation in the world to do so. Bitcoin is a transnational and autonomous currency. Critics, on the other hand, claim that the funds set aside for the big Bitcoin trial could have been better spent on upgrading the nation’s health and welfare systems instead. Retailers were compelled to start accepting Bitcoin at the beginning of September, regardless of the fact that President Nayib Bukele stated that accepting Bitcoin would indeed be optional less than 2 months before the law went into effect.
However, some Bitcoin enthusiasts believe that compulsory adoption is essential to compel businesses such as McDonald’s to recognize Bitcoin as a form of payment. The following is a devil’s advocate’s opinion on the forced adoption of #Bitcoin in El Salvador: – As Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) points out ( October 9, 2021.), “the administration was well aware that international institutions and governments would attempt to derail their efforts — foreign corporations are active in El Salvador — huge corporations would be under strain to shun #Bitcoin as money.”
Bukele, who recently lightheartedly dubbed himself “the world’s nicest dictator,” isn’t backing down from his endorsement for Bitcoin, promising the public that the govt’s multi-million Dollar transactions and camera footage of a mining project fueled by volcanic energy will demonstrate his commitment to the cryptocurrency.