[GNC] Bitcoin is legal currency in El Salvador - why not add BTC?

[Dustin Henning]

On 12/5/21 11:57 AM, john wrote:
>
>> On Dec 5, 2021, at 8:40 AM, Dr. David Kirkby <drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 5 Dec 2021 at 16:09, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> Is there not a case for adding cryptocurrency support? For anyone able to
>>>> build GnuCash from the source code, I would expect it to be a trivial
>>>> matter to add whatever currency they want, but I would have thought
>>>> there's
>>>> a good case for adding cryptosupport, in addition to fiat currencies.
>>> There is no ISO4217 entry for it.
>>
>> The great thing about standards is that there’s a lot to choose from. 😂😢
>>
>> It seems all cryptocurrency exchanges use data from CoinMarketCap, so I
>> would have thought that to be as authoritative a list
>> as any.
>>
>> https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/
>>
>> I'm in the UK, and have never dealt with anyone in El Salvador, but it
>> seems odd for an accounting package not to support a currency that's legal
>> tender in a certain country.
>>
>> I see that there are some minor currencies not listed in ISO 4217, but
>> around $39,000,000,000 of bitcoin have been traded over the last 24-hours.
>> It is hardly a minor currency.
>>
>> I guess this gives me an incentive to get GnuCash to compile on linux. Then
>> adding cryptocurrencies would (I assume) be fairly easy.
> Sorry, Bitcoin is neither a major nor a minor currency. It's not a currency at all: It isn't backed by the full faith and credit of any government, including El Salvador's, nor is it used much for actual commerce, even in El Salvador. $39B *traded*, not $39B was used to pay for goods and services. That describes a speculation vehicle, not a currency.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
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I would also question the definition of legal tender in this case.  It 
is my understanding that vendors in El Salvador aren't legally required 
to accept BTC, so it seems feasible that even that definition doesn't 
apply in spite of what various "news" outlets have reported.  
Regardless, there is nothing stopping you from setting up BTC as a 
security, and my understanding is that the latest versions of GnuCash 
support at least 8 decimal places for good measure (that certainly 
wasn't the case in 2011).