This article is the lead story for Bitcoin Magazine “The Orange Party Issue.” Click here to subscribe now.
You can download a PDF version of this article in Spanish and English.
On September 7, 2021, El Salvador became the first country in world history to adopt bitcoin, the world’s new currency.
Remember these words, as they will be etched in the history of money.
But as of today, in these early days, opinions fall into the buckets of whether it’s a bold move, a smart move, a stupid move, or just a gamble.
Of course, it was none of the above. It was the only obvious move, the only logical one. For those who understand, the real question is not if other countries will adopt bitcoin, but when.
We are so early in this paradigm shift, that a logical and common sense move is controversial; he has many people cheering him on, and many, many detractors.
On this occasion, I will not analyze the supporters, but the detractors. They can be divided into three groups:
- Those who really think it was the wrong decision.
- Those who think it’s a good decision, but for the wrong reasons.
- Those who are afraid of our decision.
Now, the interesting part is that the first and second groups exist mainly because of the third.
Because?
Because the most vocal naysayers, the ones who fear and pressure us to reverse our decision, are the world’s powerful elites and the people who work for them or benefit from them.
They used to have it all, and in a way they still do; the media, banks, NGOs, international organizations and almost every government and corporation in the world.
And with that, of course, they also own the armies, the loans, the money supply, the credit ratings, the narrative, the propaganda, the factories, the food supply; they control international trade and international law. But its most powerful weapon is the control of “truth”.
And they are willing to fight, lie, defame, destroy, censor, confiscate, print, and do whatever is necessary to maintain and increase their control over “truth,” and everything and everyone.
Just think of the hundreds, if not thousands, of articles about how El Salvador’s economy was supposedly destroyed because of its “bitcoin bet,” about how we are inevitably headed for default, that our economy is ‘has collapsed and that our government is bankrupt.
Most of you have probably seen it, right? They are all over. Every financial publication, every major news outlet, every newspaper in the world, every credit rating agency and every international financial organization is saying the same thing, as if in one voice.
But is any of this true?
Well, just read their articles and listen to their “experts” who say that all this happened after El Salvador lost about 50 million dollars due to the fall in the price of bitcoin on the stock exchanges. Since we do not sell any bitcoins, this claim is obviously false. But for a deeper analysis, let’s say it was completely true, which of course it isn’t, but bear with me.
Really? An entire country’s economy was destroyed by a loss of $50 million?
Yes, El Salvador is a relatively poor country, but in 2021 alone we produced $28 billion in goods and services. Pushing the idea that a loss of $50 million—less than 0.2% of our GDP—would destroy or even cripple our country’s economy is beyond stupid; it’s revealing.
One would think that the economic geniuses at Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, Deutsche Welle, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc., would have enough analysts and editors versed in these matters. to tell them not to post this nonsense. You would think that such absurd articles would not pass these editorial boards, but they do. And sometimes they even get really big space, like a full-page spread in The New York Times.
So the argument that we lost $50 million worth of bitcoins is false, because we simply didn’t sell any bitcoins. And even if we accepted this argument as true, it would be ludicrous to conclude that a $28 billion a year economy will go into bankruptcy or default because of a “loss” of 0.2% in a year, when the 2021 our economy grew by 10.3%, or 4 billion dollars. This is using the IMF’s own numbers!
And even if you want to accept this absurd argument as true, which would mean you ignore basic math or logic, you still don’t have to wonder why these global media corporations would give so much time and space to a country as small as now El Salvador.
Were they talking about El Salvador before? Did they care what was happening in our country? Did they report the $37 billion (with ab) that previous governments stole from our country’s treasury?
Ask yourself these questions; A few years ago, did you know where El Salvador was on a map? Did you know the name of the previous president of El Salvador? Did you know about their failed economic policies?
The answer to these questions adds to the incredible absurdity of portraying, in hundreds of serious financial publications, that an economy producing $28 billion a year will go bankrupt for an arguable loss of $50 million. This is all the proof you need to see that they are trying to scam you.
In fact, these are the real numbers, which are public information and can be found and checked quite easily:
In 2021, our GDP increased by 10.3%, tourism revenue increased by 52%, employment increased by 7%, new businesses increased by 12%, exports increased by 17%, power generation increased by 19%, energy exports increased by 3,291%, and domestic revenue increased by 37%, all without raising any taxes. And this year, the crime and murder rate is down 95%.
They are real numbers, facts that the narrative cannot distort. The only number that can be changed by their rhetoric is our bonds, as they depend mostly on the official narrative and the credit ratings of their agencies; more “truth” than the truth.
They have said over and over again, in over a hundred self-credited publications, that we are unable to pay our debts and are going into default. We were even ranked as the country with the highest risk of default in the world. El Salvador with more risk than Ukraine. Yes, exactly.
So to counter that narrative, we did the exact opposite of defaulting on our debts; we offered to pay in advance. And that is why this month we will buy all our 2023 and 2025 bonds, which the holders want to sell, of course, at market price.
You’ve also been told that there are huge anti-Bitcoin protests in El Salvador; they have been anything but huge. Also, why would my government have an approval rating of 85-90% according to all polls conducted in the last year, including several polls conducted by the opposition and several by independent international polling companies, if we were handling things so bad?
By the way, what is your president’s approval rating?
So if you are in group one or two of the naysayers, my message to you is this; stop drinking the Kool-Aid from the elites and look at the facts. Even better, come ask the people, see the transformations for yourself, walk the streets, go to the beach or our volcanoes, breathe the fresh air, feel what it really means to be free, see how one of the nations poorest on the continent and the former murder capital of the world is rapidly changing to become the best place it can be.
And then, ask yourself; why the most powerful forces in the world are against these exact transformations. And why should they care?
You see it now, right? The reason for all this is because we are not simply fighting a local opposition, or the usual obstacles any small country faces, but the system itself, for the future of humanity.
El Salvador is the epicenter of Bitcoin adoption, and thus economic freedom, financial sovereignty, resistance to censorship, unconfiscatable wealth and the end of kings, their printing, devaluation and reallocation of the wealth of the majorities to the interest groups, the elites, the oligarchs, and those who are in the shadows behind them, pulling their strings.
If El Salvador succeeds, many countries will follow. If El Salvador somehow fails, which we refuse to do, no country will follow.
They know this very well and that is why they are fighting us so hard.
Will you play their game?
Or will you be aware of the actual game?
