Trump is now attacking Bukele

President Bukele of El Salvador is a bit of a hero to the Bitcoin community for making bitcoin legal tender, passing bitcoin friendly laws and putting some of El Salvador's government reserves into bitcoin.

He's a bit of a hero to El Salvadoreans too, because he's cut the murder rate from 36 per 100,000 people to 2.4 per 100,000 people - a 93% decrease.

This has made Trump jealous (under the Trump administration, the murder rate rose from 5.24 per 100,000 to 6.42 per 100,000). At the Republican National Congress, Trump claimed that the only reason El Salvador was doing better is that they've been exporting criminals to the US.

This is demonstrably untrue. Loads of international agencies have confirmed that Bukele has reduced the murder rate by jailing gang members. They've verified that El Salvador has the largest prison population in the Americas.

So what's going on? Why is he attacking El Salvadore of all places?

It's to do with the dollar and bitcoin.

Trump loves the dollar. He loves the power the dollar, as the global reserve currency, gives the United States.

Bukele is a threat to that. El Salvador uses the US dollar as legal tender, but Bukele has expressed dis-satisfaction with that, because it leaves El Salvador vulnerable to decisions about inflation and interest rates taken thousands of miles away.

That's why Bukele legalised bitcoin. In his mind he was being prudent. If something happened to the dollar, El Salvador would need to use something else; better an independent hard currency like bitcoin, than flailing around trying to find an alternative currency to adopt.

But of course, the more successful bitcoin is, the more it takes root in places like El Salvador, the more likely the dollar will fail.

Hence Trump's attack. Falsely smear El Salvador for "exporting criminals", and then use that as a pretext to put sanctions on El Salvador to force them to give up bitcoin.

I hope Trump loses. The crypto world is better off under the bumbling Democrats than under a dollar fanatic like Trump.