Motion: It's a bad idea to make Bitcoin compulsory tender (George Selgin vs. Yves Bennaïm)

Guests:

Yves Bennaïm: twitter.com/ZLOK
George Selgin: twitter.com/georgeselgin

Host:

Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)

Today’s motion is “It's a bad idea to make Bitcoin compulsory tender.”

If you’re somewhat into crypto, you must have heard about El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law that has made Bitcoin a legal tender in addition to USD. With an asterisk. Dictionary definition of legal tender says a legal tender is a money that must be accepted if offered in payment of a debt. But El Salvador goes one step further, and says not only do lenders have to accept payment in bitcoin, but merchants that provide products and services must also. This is why the motion uses the term compulsory tender instead of legal tender.

The two debaters today will discuss what all this means. One of them will argue why this is not in line with bitcoin’s values and why this may even hurt bitcoin’s adoption. The other will argue that adoption of a new money necessitates such coercion, and this will give the little guys the same kind of opportunity as sophisticated financiers in getting involved with bitcoin.

If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.

If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.

Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.

Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

• Full text of El Salvador Bitcoin Law (3-minute read): https://freopp.org/el-salvadors-bitcoin-law-full-proposed-english-text-9a2153ad1d19
• Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com/
• How the community custodial wallet works on Bitcoin Beach, explained in another podcast: https://stephanlivera.com/episode/279/
• Explanation of how Strike uses a private instance of the Lightning Network: https://twitter.com/AdrianoFeria/status/1411344200390557701

Guest bios:

George Selgin is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia.

Yves is the founder of 2B4CH, a Bitcoin Think Tank and Industry Advocacy Group in Switzerland. He also writes about Bitcoin and crypto for the Swiss business magazine Bilan as well as the daily Swiss newspaper Le Temps.