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Prof. Steve Hanke, who 14 years ago was the chief intellectual architect of Ecuador’s points out that Dollarization brought great benefits to the Ecuadorian people.
Now that there is a growing pressure from the government to totally quit Dollarization, Prof. Hanke says that going off the dollar will also have terrible consequences for Ecuador’s economy:
“If you go off, the fiscal deficit gets bigger, the level of debt gets bigger, inflation goes up and economic growth goes down. All the economic indicators just go south.”
Ecuadorians are perfectly aware that dollarization has enabled them to import a vital element of the rule of law, one that protects them from the grabbing hand of the State. And that’s probably the main reason why recent polling results show that dollarization is embraced by 85% of the population.
The Ecuadorian government e-money initiative is about to have a wider institutional involvement following a government directive. This same initiative was the primary cause for the government outlawing Bitcoin earlier this year.
According to a report by Pan-Am Post’s Belén Marty, the country’s banks were ordered late last month to adopt the new payment system within the next year. It seems that the nation’s central bank has given them 360 days to get on board, with a mandate released on May 25 in the official register.
The resolution gives a sweeping and vague definition of “macroagents” for adoption: Companies, organizations, and public or private institutions; financial institutions of the popular and cooperative system; that maintain a network of establishments available for clients and are capable of acquiring mobile money, distributing it, or converting it into varieties of money.
So, in a final analysis, it’s assumable to think that if the dollar is taken out of the picture, the protection from “the grabbing hand of the State” is completely erased. To make matters worse, the Central Bank of Ecuador (BCE)’s crypto-currency transactions will carry no privacy.
Jorge Espinoza 
Devin Serpa 
Digital currency is not the same as cryptocurrency, so please either correct or delete your article. This is way too misleading.
Yeah, well, actually cryptocurrency is a subset of digital currency so it is essentially the same. Your point is completely and utterly invalid. The article is not misleading.
Every cryptocurrency is a digital currency, but not every digital currency is a cryptocurrency, you idiot.
I said “essentially the same,” as in “for the particular reasons” the government is using cryptocurrency. While cryptography is used to secure transactions an avoid spontaneous creation of new money, for practical reasons, both work in the same manner, cryptocurrency and digital currency. Yes, cryptocurrency are not equally and undeniably the same as digital currency, but in this article they make no difference in however way they are mentioned for the practical uses it will have in Ecuador.
And please start making better arguments instead of insulting people, it may seem as if you’ve never taken a course in proper Logic.
Government e-money is not blockchain cryptocurrency.