BREAKDOWN: El Salvador's Battle With the IMF Is Bigger Than Bitcoin
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The IMF is pushing El Salvador to drop BTC as legal tender.
This episode is sponsored by Nexo, Abra and FTX US.
When Nayib Bukele announced that El Salvador would be making bitcoin legal tender, the international monetary establishment acted with some amount of skepticism. When he announced the nation would be issuing bitcoin bonds, that skepticism turned to anger. Now, the IMF is pushing El Salvador to ditch BTC as legal tender altogether. On today’s episode, NLW explores what’s really going on.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell, research by Scott Hill and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Time” by OBOY. Image credit: chekyfoto/iStock/Getty Images Plus, modified by CoinDesk. Join the discussion at discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What is driving all of this anger coming from the global establishment? |
| 0:06.2 | It really comes back to what the breakdown is about power and power shifts. |
| 0:11.2 | The IMF has been the only game in town for distressed sovereigns since forever at this point. |
| 0:16.3 | Buckele and El Salvador are pushing against that. |
| 0:18.7 | They represent an alternative approach. |
| 0:22.6 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the |
| 0:29.7 | big picture power shifts remaking our world. The breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io, |
| 0:34.9 | Abra, and FTX, and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. |
| 0:40.5 | What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, January 26th, and today we are discussing why El Salvador's |
| 0:46.7 | battle with the IMF is bigger than Bitcoin. First up, however, if you are enjoying this show, |
| 0:53.1 | go subscribe to it, give it five stars, leave a review, or join the Discord. |
| 0:58.9 | The Breakers Discord is where we talk about not only the stuff going on in the show, but pretty much anything in this industry or in global politics or whatever the community wants to talk about. |
| 1:08.9 | You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit. |
| 1:10.9 | Dotley slash breakdown pod. Finally, standard disclosure, in addition to them being a sponsor, |
| 1:17.5 | I also work with FTX. Now, yesterday a headline started flying around from Twitter and |
| 1:23.5 | the APF news agency that got the whole Bitcoin community chattering. That headline was breaking. |
| 1:30.3 | IMF urges El Salvador to remove Bitcoin as legal tender. Bloomberg had a similar headline. |
| 1:37.1 | The IMF's board urged El Salvador to strip Bitcoin of its status as legal tender in the country, |
| 1:42.3 | citing risks to financial stability, financial |
| 1:44.6 | integrity, and consumer protection. This all comes from a Tuesday report titled, |
| 1:51.3 | IMF Executive Board concludes 2021 Article 4 consultation with El Salvador, a couple of the key |
| 1:57.1 | quotes. IMF directors quote stressed that there are large risks associated with the use |
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