LUNA could have become legal tender in El Salvador, says Samson Mow
3 min read
For a short time, El Salvador could have adopted the LUNA as its official currency. Who made this statement was Samson Mow, founder of Jan3 and former executive of Blockstream, during The Capital, conference held by CoinMarketCap.
In his speech, Mow stated that at the time of the approval of the BTC, LUNA could have become legal tender in the country. Looking back, the cryptocurrency collapse would have been a disaster for the country.
“Luna was the hot thing. All venture capital funds supported the project. If you’re not careful, it can look like a very shiny gem when it’s actually polished poop.”
During his appearance, Mow took a heavy toll on supporters of what he called “shitcoins”. In his words, many are unsuccessfully trying to turn their cryptocurrencies into legal tender. In this way, they try to obtain for them the same legitimacy given to BTC.
President received offers
According to Mow, it all started in September, when El Salvador approved the BTC. With the help of Blockstream, the country became the first in the world to adopt BTC as its official currency.
The measure naturally gained huge global repercussion, as it was a country legitimizing the use of BTC. Mow revealed that every time this happens, “shitcoiners flock to that place like flies to anything.”
“Shitcoiner” is a term used derogatorily by those who invest only in BTC to refer to investors in other cryptocurrencies. In this sense, bitcoiners claim that most of the nearly 20,000 existing cryptocurrencies are nothing more than scams.
In his speech, Mow explained that several representatives of other cryptocurrencies tried to meet with President Nayib Bukele after the law was passed. Their goal, says Mow, would be to ride on the president’s then-popularity.
“The bitcoiners on the ground managed to prevent President Bukele from, you know, taking a selfie with Kwon (founder of Terra) or whatever, right. That wouldn’t have been ideal,” warns Mow.
Bukele’s decision not to opt for LUNA proved to be the right one over time, as shown in the price chart. On September 7, LUNA was quoted at US$99, close to its all-time high. However, the price collapsed months later and practically turned to dust.
Countries adopting altcoins
Since El Salvador adopted the BTC Ley, the Central African Republic has legalized cryptocurrencies as legal tender. That is, in less than a year, two countries have already adopted BTC as a currency.
But according to Mow, there is a chance that a country will adopt an altcoin. This has already happened to one city: Lugano, Switzerland, has adopted the USDT stablecoin as its legal tender. BTC was also chosen as the currency, as well as another local stablecoin.
The CEO of Jan3 – a company that is playing an instrumental role in helping nation-states embrace BTC – said that altcoin adoption would be “entertaining”.
“The smart ones will definitely look at BTC, because BTC is the only one that is decentralized. If you’ve adopted a little bit of shitcoin or a little bit of altcoin and you find that they’re not decentralized and can be turned off, you’re going to lose a lot of reputation,” he said.
In short, countries will tend to choose the most secure, stable and decentralized platform. Which in Mow’s – and maximalist’s – view is undoubtedly BTC.
