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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Under the Bitcoin Volcano

Late Night Open Thread: Under the Bitcoin Volcano

by Anne Laurie|  November 23, 202111:59 pm| 46 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Foreign Affairs, Glibertarianism, Open Threads

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El Salvador president announces plan to create a “Bitcoin City” that will be backed by bitcoin bonds and powered by a nearby volcano.

Cannot see any possible way this might go wrong. pic.twitter.com/c3ioxo5BFj

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) November 22, 2021

El Salvador plans to build the world's first 'Bitcoin City' with money from a $1 billion bitcoin-backed bond, President Nayib Bukele said.

Here is what we know about the proposed bond and some of the details that still need to be filled in https://t.co/0TitFFJ1ay pic.twitter.com/SgeTA4xxZb

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 23, 2021

Yes, that is Presiden Bukele, in person. Speaking of a country ‘so far from God, so close to the United States’:

… Bukele said El Salvador planned to issue the bond in 2022, suggesting it could be as soon as in 60 days time.

Half of the $1 billion sum would be converted to bitcoin and the other half used for infrastructure and bitcoin mining.

Samson Mow, chief strategy officer of blockchain technology company Blockstream who was on stage with Bukele said that the ‘volcano bonds’ – the new city will be powered with geothermal energy from a nearby volcano – will be U.S. dollar-denominated 10-year bonds and carry a coupon of 6.5%.

That is well below the 13.5% interest rate yield El Salvador’s 10-year bonds are currently trading at. The premium investors demand to hold El Salvador bonds rather than ultra-safe U.S. government bonds has also more than doubled since June when Bukele’s push to make bitcoin legal tender started…

More bitcoin-back bonds are also planned and Mow said he expected other countries to do the same. He also speculated that the moves would absorb enough bitcoin to push up the value of cryptocurrency. That would allow El Salvador to then pay off the bond with profits made from selling the bitcoin again.

After a five year ‘lock-up’, El Salvador could also start selling some of the bitcoin to give investors an “additional coupon” every year, Mow said…

It is not known when exactly next year the bond would be launched or when El Salvador would buy the $500 million worth of bitcoin it sees as crucial to the plan…

It is also not known what would happen to the new bonds if the country defaulted on its existing traditional bonds. The government’s next bond deadline is an $800 million repayment due in January 2023. That bond is currently trading at a near 20% discount from its face value due to El Salvador’s debt problems…

But no doubt it will attract many find tourists / immigrants, such as this dude:

I’ve always said buying beer was too easy and fast and what I really need is somebody to come along and just fuck the entire thing up https://t.co/rTvQbGGcuZ

— kilgore trout, uatx professor of turnip studies (@KT_So_It_Goes) November 23, 2021

Lots of people making GTA jokes on this but it's the perfect analogy. You win that game by maxing out a device's processing speed and accumulating digital currency that isn't real in the distant hope of one-day owning a rocket launcher-armed Lamborghini.

— zeddy (@Zeddary) November 22, 2021

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46Comments

  1. 1.

    Kayla Rudbek

    November 24, 2021 at 12:10 am

    Sigh. According to the Thanksgiving Order of Battle email from my sibling, it looks like I will be doing more experimental cooking for Thanksgiving dinner than I would prefer. No eggs, no dairy, no soy are some fairly harsh constraints on stuffing. I found a matzo farfel stuffing/dressing recipe that doesn’t involve eggs, so I may send Mr. Rudbek over to the grocery store tomorrow morning to pick up the vegetables we need. Matzo farfel stuffing without eggs
    He already picked up 2 canisters of the matzo farfel, so I would prefer to do something with it to use it up.

    In a pinch, I could also try out the JustEgg liquid to see how well that works in stuffing, but why make things even more difficult than they already are?

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    November 24, 2021 at 12:10 am

    it’s not obvious to people who haven’t wasted the brain cells and time to learn this stuff, but …. this fellow DID NOT buy his beer with bitcoin using a bitcoin transaction.  Instead, he used the equivalent of a prepaid BTC credit card, with an issuer who almost-certainly did not use a bitcoin transaction, but basically just debited a ledger he keeps.  This dude said “pay for my beer with the lightning network”,  and “lightning” is somewhat of a prepaid credit card.

    Even if you believe in BTC and decentralized commerce (which is already a brain fail), this lightning shit is …. re-centralizing it, b/c only people with large reserves of capital can really be lightning liquidity providers.  Needless to say, it’s all really, really, really complicated, so it’s hard to peel back all the layers.  But when you do so, that’s what it really boils down to.

    Sigh.  So much fail.

  3. 3.

    eclare

    November 24, 2021 at 12:18 am

    @Kayla Rudbek: 
    I read the recipe, cumin in dressing?

  4. 4.

    Kent

    November 24, 2021 at 12:21 am

    I apply my poker rule to this sort of thing.

    If you look around the table and can’t tell who the mark is, then it is you.

    Bitcoin and one of the most corrupt governments in Latin America. What can go wrong

     

    EDIT:  And I’ve bought lots of beer in El Salvador.  The right way to do it is with crumpled Colones.  Although I guess they use dollars now.

  5. 5.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 24, 2021 at 12:22 am

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    No eggs, no dairy, no soy are some fairly harsh constraints on stuffing.

    So how many boxes of Stove Top will you be buying tomorrow? ?

    (Don’t know if Stove Top actually meets all of the demands.)

  6. 6.

    Ms. Deranged in AZ

    November 24, 2021 at 12:26 am

    Is it just me all or does this sound like “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul”?

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 24, 2021 at 12:26 am

    @Kent: I still want to know what the point of mining is.

    Computing power put to scientific or medical use actually has a point to it.  This massive waste of electricity and computer cycles…?‍♂️

  8. 8.

    West of the Rockies

    November 24, 2021 at 12:28 am

    Another crypto post… I’ll check in later.  Not my thing.

  9. 9.

    jnfr

    November 24, 2021 at 12:28 am

    Let’s all go live on a volcano! What could possibly go wrong?

  10. 10.

    Chetan Murthy

    November 24, 2021 at 12:28 am

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ:

    “borrowing from Peter to pay Paul”

    Maybe more “borrowing from Peter, to put it all on Silly Billy in the Cesarewitch Handicap, hoping to pay Paul off with the winnings”

  11. 11.

    Steeplejack

    November 24, 2021 at 12:43 am

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    The stuffing/​dressing recipe that NotMax linked to the other night looks good. No eggs, no dairy, no soy, and pretty simple. Ingredients and directions <a href = "https://spainonafork.com/how-to-make-4-thanksgiving-side-dishes-that-will-steal-the-show/"down in this page.

  12. 12.

    Benw

    November 24, 2021 at 12:45 am

    @Kayla Rudbek: you’re a good person for doing this!

    It’s really hard to cook vegan food. Here’s a recipe that might work:

    https://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/whole-grain-stuffing-with-caramelized-onions-and-pecans/

  13. 13.

    Steeplejack

    November 24, 2021 at 12:46 am

    @Steeplejack:

    Fixed. Ingredients and directions down in this page.

  14. 14.

    eclare

    November 24, 2021 at 12:46 am

    Redacted.

  15. 15.

    Steeplejack

    November 24, 2021 at 1:15 am

    Speaking of T-Day . . .

    Somewhere this Thursday, a guy is gonna brag over a dinner spread about how he got into the Capitol and never got caught, and his nieces and nephews are gonna turn him in to the FBI, and the desserts are gonna be delicious

    — Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) November 23, 2021

  16. 16.

    Kent

    November 24, 2021 at 1:41 am

    @mrmoshpotato:

    @Kent: I still want to know what the point of mining is.

    Computing power put to scientific or medical use actually has a point to it.  This massive waste of electricity and computer cycles…?‍♂️

    It is the equivalent of sitting in your garage in your idling car doing Sudoku puzzles.  And it’s not like Central America has a surplus of electricity. Trust me.

  17. 17.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 24, 2021 at 1:56 am

    @Steeplejack: LOL!  That’s most definitely true.

  18. 18.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    November 24, 2021 at 2:22 am

    @Kent:

    Close… let me tweak it a bit for accuracy.

    It is the equivalent of sitting in your garage in your car, engine running and pedal to the metal while doing Sudoku puzzles.

  19. 19.

    Ruckus

    November 24, 2021 at 2:26 am

    @Ms. Deranged in AZ:

    No. Because in the original story you actually borrowed something from Peter to pay Paul.

    This is more like you borrowed hot air from Peter and paid Paul twice as much as you owed him and he’s still got nothing.

  20. 20.

    Ruckus

    November 24, 2021 at 2:41 am

    As this is an open thread….

    If you have Netflix there is a show, one of theirs that is, in my mind extremely good.

    It’s called Rising Phoenix and it is about the Paralympics, it’s history and more important, some of the participants, people from many countries who are disabled and perform events like many of the regular Olympics but with, of course, some subtle differences. Like sword fighting without arms and legs, from a wheel chair. Or swimming Olympic distance events with a missing limb at close to Olympic record speed. Or shooting a bow and arrow with no arms. Or….. Just watch it once, I’ll bet you will be amazed. There are back stories about the people that are highlighted. Some of them will stun you about people’s expectations. Or maybe not. It’s well worth the 1 1/2 hr of your time.

  21. 21.

    MikefromArlington

    November 24, 2021 at 2:57 am

    History repeats itself.

    2000 years from now we’ll be digging out a city of debauchery buried by volcano ash.

  22. 22.

    Captain C

    November 24, 2021 at 3:06 am

    @Kent: 

    It is the equivalent of sitting in your garage in your idling car doing Sudoku puzzles.

    And the more gas you burn, the more puzzles you can solve. And then you can trade the solved puzzles for heroin or other swag.

  23. 23.

    opiejeanne

    November 24, 2021 at 3:23 am

    @Captain C: The last time we rode in an Uber, and it will probably be the very last time we ever do, the driver was talkative and told us all about how he was creating a Crypto Currency and a company had loaned him $68k to develop it.  So, he’s in hock for $68k, driving for Uber, while adding another heavy-polluting “industry” to the planet.

    The funny thing is that someone on Twitter mentioned that their Uber driver talked about developing his own Crypto currency, and people affirmed that they had had similar experiences. I thought we’d just gotten lucky.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    November 24, 2021 at 4:01 am

    @opiejeanne
    “How does the name Big Swinging Dickcoin strike ya?”

    //

  25. 25.

    mrmoshpotato

    November 24, 2021 at 4:03 am

    @NotMax: Could use some work.  How about “Totally Not A Scamcoin, Bro!”?

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    November 24, 2021 at 4:09 am

    Floriduh-on-the-Erft?

    Missing the point: Man in Germany drives to driving test

    :)

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    November 24, 2021 at 4:21 am

    @mrmoshpotato

    Iggies.

    Short for IGMFYcoin.

  28. 28.

    Frankensteinbeck

    November 24, 2021 at 4:23 am

    Major crypto investors have been funding projects that pretend crypto is being used as currency, presumably to keep the techbro marks coming in.  It’s a thing.  Like @Chetan Murthy: says, they’re not even actually using crypto for their currency transactions.  It’s pure scam.

  29. 29.

    chris green

    November 24, 2021 at 4:47 am

    “More bitcoin-back bonds are also planned and Mow said he expected other countries to do the same. He also speculated that the moves would absorb enough bitcoin to push up the value of cryptocurrency. That would allow El Salvador to then pay off the bond with profits made from selling the bitcoin again.

    After a five year ‘lock-up’, El Salvador could also start selling some of the bitcoin to give investors an “additional coupon” every year, Mow said”

     

    so, basically borrowing money makes you money, and lending you money makes the lenders money, forever.

    I can see no flaw in this idea.

  30. 30.

    Frankensteinbeck

    November 24, 2021 at 4:47 am

    For anyone who wants the short version of how that scam works, makeshift bank sells debit cards.  Bank keeps crypto on hand.  When you use the card, the bank writes down it traded crypto to itself.

     

     

    Less short commentary:

    This is also a big thing keeping the crypto bubble going, and usually the bank’s money is immediately embezzled and the operator is ready to run when the marks find out.  Meanwhile, the money launderers have a bank to work with.

    Crypto is largely keeping the bubble inflating with this stuff.  It will pop eventually, but boy, is it a successful scam so far.  There are a lot of speculators who think they’re rich until they try to sell.  There is an enormous reservoir of dumbass tech bros who will keep pouring money into the pockets of thieves, convinced they alone are the genius innovators who see the simple solution to all the world’s problems.  There is a small but wealthy set of marks who will chase any buzzword, and they sit on the board of many major companies.  Dipshits like Jared Kushner.  There always has been an industry of con artists selling the latest buzzword to those dipshits.  One of those built my first publisher, then when the company actually worked were horrified and stole its (and my) money to push a new buzzword scam to big investors.

  31. 31.

    Patricia Kayden

    November 24, 2021 at 5:38 am

    Kyle Rittenhouse's 'I'm not a white supremacist" tour included sitting down with the Fox News guy who espouses white supremacist replacement theory and meeting with the guy who called the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville very fine people. Not exactly changing minds.— Mr. Newberger (@jeremynewberger) November 24, 2021

  32. 32.

    Cermet

    November 24, 2021 at 5:45 am

    @mrmoshpotato: Uh, what? Yes, far too many breads are sold that contain that shit – but there are  breads sold that don’t contain those ridiculous and needless ingredients – but that is often where issues arise, I guess. Remember, your oven is your friend – just buy real bread, cut into cubes and toast in the oven; your problem solved simply.

  33. 33.

    Barry

    November 24, 2021 at 6:04 am

    @Kayla Rudbek: “No eggs, no dairy, no soy are some fairly harsh constraints on stuffing.”

     

    Wild rice, pecans and mushrooms.

  34. 34.

    prostratedragon

    November 24, 2021 at 6:25 am

    @opiejeanne:
    The funny thing is
    Stop this crazy thing!!

  35. 35.

    lowtechcyclist

    November 24, 2021 at 7:00 am

    He also speculated that the moves would absorb enough bitcoin to push up the value of cryptocurrency. That would allow El Salvador to then pay off the bond with profits made from selling the bitcoin again.

    Reminds me of Groucho Marx’ 7-cent nickel from Animal Crackers:

    Groucho: You know what this country needs? A 7-cent nickel. We’ve had the 5-cent nickel since 1492. Nearly 100 years. Let’s give the 7-cent nickel a chance, and then try an 8-cent nickel. You buy a 3-cent paper and get the same nickel back. One nickel carefully used would last a family a lifetime.

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    November 24, 2021 at 7:26 am

    @jnfr: Let’s all go live on a volcano! What could possibly go wrong?

    Now, I don’t know, I don’t know
    I don’t know where I’m a gonna go when the volcano blow

  37. 37.

    different-church-lady

    November 24, 2021 at 7:55 am

    @Kayla Rudbek: May I suggest pot luck?

  38. 38.

    different-church-lady

    November 24, 2021 at 7:59 am

    @Captain C: Except every time you solve a puzzle the next one takes twice as long and you have to idle the car twice as fast.

  39. 39.

    different-church-lady

    November 24, 2021 at 8:07 am

    The Last Thanksgiving.

  40. 40.

    Kayla Rudbek

    November 24, 2021 at 8:20 am

    @eclare:  I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten matzo before. I have, and it is so bland that I could probably add those Jamaican peppers (Scotch bonnets?) to it and still eat it comfortably.

  41. 41.

    Kayla Rudbek

    November 24, 2021 at 8:28 am

    @different-church-lady: it’s potluck already; the problem is finding recipes that work will all of our dietary constraints.

     

    @eclare: and so the matzo is so bland that cumin and turmeric are only going to be a good start to the spices in my opinion.

  42. 42.

    Ken

    November 24, 2021 at 8:29 am

    I notice that the bonds themselves are dollar-denominated, not bitcoin-denominated.  One might think that no one involved really believes bitcoin is a currency.

  43. 43.

    Miss Bianca

    November 24, 2021 at 9:27 am

    @Kayla Rudbek: Wait a minute…you’re doing a vegan/soy-free stuffing…for a *turkey*?

  44. 44.

    opiejeanne

    November 24, 2021 at 10:49 am

    @Miss Bianca: So the vegan will have something to eat. We did that for a vegetarian, but we baked it in a casserole because we’ve never liked putting the stuffing inside the bird and then digging it out again. There were enough fruits and vegetables for him, and he was happy to be included.

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    November 24, 2021 at 11:54 am

    @Kayla Rudbek:

    No eggs, no dairy, no soy are some fairly harsh constraints on stuffing.

    I must admit that in 50 years of cooking and making dressing/stuffing so many times, I have NEVER used eggs, dairy, or soy in any stuffing/dressing I have made. Bread crumbs, sauteed vegetables, broth, herbs and spices. That’s it.

    Sometimes the bread is little cubes of stale bread, sometimes purchased bags of crushed crumbs,  sometimes left over ends of baked loaves, etc. Never eggs, dairy, or soy.

    Sometimes I make a little dish on the side with oysters, because Wife and others don’t care for oysters.

    Never eggs, dairy, or soy, tho. Has never occurred to me that one might want any of those items in stuffing or dressing. But you do you.

  46. 46.

    J R in WV

    November 24, 2021 at 12:06 pm

    @Kent:

    I still want to know what the point of mining is.

    Computing power put to scientific or medical use actually has a point to it.  This massive waste of electricity and computer cycles…?‍♂️

    It is the equivalent of sitting in your garage in your idling car doing Sudoku puzzles.

    And then you die from CO asphyxiation.

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