pull down to refresh
168 sats \ 8 replies \ @elvismercury 23 Jan \ on: Bitcoin Holdings by Country charts_and_numbers
Interesting to imagine the fortunes of El Salvador + Bhutan w/ btc at 10x purchasing power from today. Also interesting to imagine if they think about the ROI of different efforts they could make toward this end. Does that factor into their thinking?
Also interesting to imagine if they think about the ROI of different efforts they could make toward this end.
Like, do they think about ways to get more bitcoin? A lot of bitcoiners seemed think el salvador's imf loan was for that purpose.
When I think about ROI and bitcoin, I tend to think about how nearly everything has worse ROI. I wish it weren't so, but at least historically, it's been more rational to mine and borrow fiat, buy bitcoin, then freeze one's ambitions while the wealth transfer takes place. I see it on the individual scale a lot (I feel like half the bitcoiners in austin are semiretired at least), we see it with Microstrategy, and I'm sure we will or are seeing with states.
reply
Like, do they think about ways to get more bitcoin?
More like: We have a ton of bitcoin and would benefit from 10xing the value of what we have. What could we do to make that happen?
One obvious thing to do is the MSTR play: buy bitcoin, a lot of it. But this strategy only goes so far, and isn't enough by itself. So what else could different entities do, w/ the resources they have?
If you're a person, you might say "I will dedicate my life to educating people about btc" or "I will make Lightning as easy to use as possible" or "I will re-architect online community with btc at the center" and all of these things make the whole btc ecosystem more interesting and powerful and so, indirectly, increase the value of your stack.
Now imagine that you're a literal nation state. Maybe a small one, but still. What could you do with your particular resources that could add value that (for instance) MSTR could not accomplish by their hungry hippos model of btc value accretion?
I can think of a few things that seem very high leverage and very (relatively) cheap, in the case of El Salvador. It would be fun to have that be your job -- presumably it is somebody's job.
reply
Ah: how can we pump our bags?
We see it in Microstrategy and Saylor are educating institutions. When I started SN, a few bitcoin venture investors told me they wanted indirect returns as much as they wanted normal returns.
At the scale of a country, it gets a lot more interesting.
I can think of a few things that seem very high leverage and very (relatively) cheap, in the case of El Salvador.
Mind sharing? I have trouble thinking of any.
reply
One thing that comes to mind is that you could do small but substantive education things, e.g., "El Salvador is going to be at the heart of the new economy" and you create a program that's like an accelerated, btc-focused computer science curriculum for young people in your country, or btc + AI to make it more broadly palatable.
You enroll like fifty people into it per year, hire a handful of hackers / teachers to help them, and give them an education with some kind of public service component. This costs negligible money, but could produce non-negligible results on the btc ecosystem to spit out a bunch of csci-type devs bootstrapped with the proper expertise, especially if you framed it as a prestige thing -- the 50 most promising kids in ES get free rides. Or do it in cohorts of 20 per semester, and each semester helps the kids in the previous semester. Lots of ways to design it if it's a govt program. And the bar is way lower than w/ normal govt stuff -- you don't have to help everyone to make a substantial contribution.
Probably wouldn't be hard to get some super seasoned btc devs / general software types to come in and mentor the students, teach classes, take them as apprentices, etc. You turn it into the Chaincode of the South, give people a free and picturesque place to stay, etc. Play matchmaker w/ btc-centric companies in the North, etc.
reply
You enroll like fifty people into it per year, hire a handful of hackers / teachers to help them, and give them an education with some kind of public service component.
They first did that in El Salvador with My First Bitcoin. IBEX/Swan did a short documentary about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-tZGwmOOGI. I recall the program has spread to other places like Bitcoin Ekasi in South Africa.
Probably wouldn't be hard to get some super seasoned btc devs / general software types to come in and mentor the students, teach classes, take them as apprentices, etc. You turn it into the Chaincode of the South, give people a free and picturesque place to stay, etc. Play matchmaker w/ btc-centric companies in the North, etc.
Cubo+ goes a bit further and is training them into bitcoin/lightning devs. Niftynei, Jimmy Song, other bitcoiners helped with the goal setting. They've had a few cohorts finish by now I imagine.
It's playing out exactly how you imagine it. At least in a few of these places.
reply
Super cool! Let me noodle on a less intuitive idea and see if I can stump you :)
reply
When I started SN, a few bitcoin venture investors told me they wanted indirect returns as much as they wanted normal returns.
Makes me excited to hear that people are thinking that way! Any examples of "indirect returns" that were tossed around in those conversations?