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I feel like there are whales that simply manipulate the price based on news. There's little evidence to suggest bitcoin has any usage in zimbabwe in practical d

by pwaai 9y ago

I feel like there are whales that simply manipulate the price based on news. There's little evidence to suggest bitcoin has any usage in zimbabwe in practical day to day usage. Therelies the problem with bitcoin, why would someone in zimbabwe pay 1 week of their salary to move 3 weeks of pay and still not be sure if the money will still be there tomorrow?

kown223 9y ago
if you didn't dealt with this you can't understand, but simply put, 1 week of pay could be toilet paper next week(s), as it happened in Venezuela. In my country some years ago, in a time of crisis for example the government locked all foreign currency in banks, and auto exchanged it for the national currency, at a rate set by them, it was robbery basically, prices would jump up like 25% day to day, so the national current was worthless, oh, they did the same with all the private owned gold in banks or so they could grab, sold for national currency, same scenario I think it happened in Basil too, government locking money in banks.
- solaarphunk 9y ago
  .... but bitcoin frequently jumps 25% a day on NON-domestic news.... how is it a better store of value?
  - lloeki 9y ago
    > .... but bitcoin frequently jumps 25% a day on NON-domestic news.... how is it a better store of value? Z$ record inflation was 79,600,000,000% a month[0] before it disappeared. Bitcoin's short term volatility looks quite manageable in comparison. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#Inflation_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#Inf...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Historically, Bitcoin has had high short-run volatility but also strong longer-term appreciation trend. That means it's been a good store of value, but not one you want, ideally, to rely on in situations where you might want money on short notice with little control of timing. (Whether it's reasonable to project that past behavior into the future is another discussion, of course.)
  - shanusmagnus 9y ago
    I love when my store of value jumps 25% in a day.
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    That still beats hyperinflation or the currency collapsing outright. Also, what other investment options do you have? I have no idea how easy or hard it is to buy Vanguard shares on short notice in Zimbabwe.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Probably not hard for the elite or upper class, if you have access to the internet and an interactive brokers account.
    - taejo 9y ago
      There hasn't been hyperinflation in Zimbabwe for years. The main currency is USD, with some parallel use of South African Rand, Botswana Pula and Zambian Kwatsha.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      You can’t store Vanguard shares in your brain.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    No it doesn't. It hasn't done for a long time.
  - cxspoon 9y ago
    bitcoin = fluctuation = jumps up and down prices = inflation = jumps up and up
    - xadhominemx 9y ago
      if you need bitcoin to buy toilet paper, why not just buy toilet paper
      - thephyber 9y ago
        With what? Zimbabwe has been in a hyperinflation downward spiral for almost two decades now[1]. If you hold your Zimbabwe Dollars overnight, they are only worth a fraction of what they were the day before. In hyper-inflationary periods, people would rather buy goods immediately than hold onto cash because the cash depreciates FAR faster than commodities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#/media/File:ZWDvsUSDchart.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#/me...
        CamelCaseName 9y ago
        His joke is that Zimbabwean dollars are toilet paper.
        xadhominemx 9y ago
        No, I wasn't joking. I was asking sincerely, if you're reason for holding bitcoin is that you want to be able to buy goods next week without worrying about inflation, why not just buy the goods now and avoid the risk of owning bitcoin.
        craigc 9y ago
        But if you spend all your money on goods and then you need something else in a week or two then what do you use to buy it? Sell/trade the goods you already purchased? I think it makes sense to hold on to some form of currency.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    No it doesn't. It has been several years since that was true. Big jumps these days are 5-10%. The recent drop during the BCH pump and dump didn't even get to 25% in day. I would encourage you to consult charts, as most of those memes are out of date.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      3 days ago till now was a 25% jump in price. I was on record saying it was a good idea to buy in at $5800: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679776 it's currently $7200. And 60 days ago I said to buy in at $3k: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134 After Bitcoin crashes, it's always a good idea to buy. A 25% fluctuation is still the norm. Sure, it takes 3 days rather than 1 day, but it's not mistaken.
  - mr_toad 9y ago
    That's the the opposite of inflation. Relative to bitcoin, prices of goods and services are decreasing.
- drharby 9y ago
  ...PH?
- brettfarrow 9y ago
  That's definitely a real concern for some countries, but Zimbabwe has only used other currencies for years. When I went 5 years ago, you could pay for your entrance visa in either USD, GBP, or EUR. All large grocery stores had that day's exchange rates posted near the entrance in USD, ZAR, and at least one other currency (GBP, EUR, or Botswana pula are the ones I remember).
  - sangnoir 9y ago
    Things have changed in the 5 years - Zimbabwe now has a (quasi)currency - the "Bond notes" which are officially 1:1 with the USD. Getting access to cash in this quasi-currency is hard, getting it in USD is well-neigh impossible^w^w expensive.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  You can go anywhere in the world and use USD, or exchange it for local currency. BTC is accepted pretty much nowhere, and it's difficult to exchange for any given currency. I can't fathom for a second why BTC would be more popular than BTC at least on those terms. Exchanges may be more readily available for BTC, as USD movement is controlled, you need banks etc.. Especially given the level of technology required ... I don't think that Zimbabwe is realistically the driving force here.
rebuilder 9y ago
It doesn't have to have any use in Zimbabwe to be attractive to a subset of Zimbabweans. Trading 1,000,000 USD worth of BTC in a month doesn't suggest any widescale adoption IMO, I do wish Bloomberg had gone a bit further into just how significant this actually is. Dramatic volatility in small, local markets is pretty standard in Bitcoin.
ActsJuvenile 9y ago
Yeah I hate these "Bitcoin is happening in (Insert African/Latin Country here)" type of remarks. For Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to conquer the US market adoption and it is not even close to doing that. All price gains are just speculation and market manipulation.
- Pfhreak 9y ago
  > For Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to conquer the US market adoption Genuinely: Why is that axiomatic? Why is there no path that is, reductively, in parts of the world where electronic payments are already normal, bitcoin becomes the instrument?
  - ActsJuvenile 9y ago
    Because Zimbabwean consumer doesn't influence USA; but USA consumer influences rest of the world. I can't think of any technology besides micro-finance that has trickled-up to USA.
    - siavosh 9y ago
      Possibly using your phone for payment which has been long popular in Asia as well as Africa.
    - yen223 9y ago
      Counterpoint: WhatsApp and WeChat are huge despite not having much of an American presence.
      - FRex 9y ago
        That's not a counterpoint but a confirmation of the first part of the original argument. You just listed two examples of such apps that fail to influence America despite being huge in other countries. To make a counterpoint you need to find something popular in USA with no uptake outside of it or something that influenced USA but came from outside.
lend000 9y ago
Bitcoin is too big for a few "whales" to have a sizable effect on major price trends -- even if significant groups of them were somehow coordinated. This explanation is commonly used in general cryptocurrency forums and even some trading forums, but it really comes down to not understanding how markets work and trying to assign some meaning (not so different from religion). Whales are not gods.
- eighthnate 9y ago
  > Bitcoin is too big for a few "whales" to have a sizable effect on major price trends Bitcoin is tiny as currencies go or as industries go. What is it $100 billion "market cap"? > Whales are not gods. Sure. But in such a tiny volume entity like bitcoin, any large player can easily move markets. It doesn't even have market makers or any real rules yet.
  - freeloop3 9y ago
    The volume today was over $4 billion. Let's say you'd need 5% of that to move the market enough for people to take notice. (Given the large volatility, this actually seems conservative) Are you suggesting that there are people who are regularly buying and selling more than $200 million worth of cryptocurrency a day?
  - lend000 9y ago
    > It doesn't even have market makers or any real rules yet. Blatantly false -- you clearly don't monitor crypto exchange order books full time (I do). Even most small-cap altcoins have active market makers running 24/7 for ALT/BTC, ALT/ETH and ALT/USD (where supported). > But in such a tiny volume entity like bitcoin, any large player can easily move markets. Do you know from experience? There are some extremely low market cap altcoins -- you should give it a try. I do not think manipulating markets for any length of time is as easy as sideline commenters seem to believe, and it certainly is difficult to make it profitable. Also note that many of the highest market share Bitcoin investors were early crypto enthusiasts or wealthy venture-cap-type investors, not professional/active traders. If and when there is concerted market manipulation with hundreds of millions behind it, these early adopters are certainly taking heavy losses.
chesimov 9y ago
If you read about what has already happened in Zim, you'll understand why people would do that sort of thing with ease at even the thought of upheaval. I agree with you on the whales but man... back in the 2000s people were desperately trying to change fiat into anything at all that would hold value. Consumer goods like dvd players, you name it. Hyperinflation is no joke. On a side note in places like SA bitcoin is viewed as less volatile than fiat a lot of the time.
- sp527 9y ago
  If people in Zimbabwe were buying consumer technology as a store of value, that suggests a very poor financial sense to desperation ratio.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    What else would you have done?

by pwaai 9y ago

kown223 9y ago

if you didn't dealt with this you can't understand, but simply put, 1 week of pay could be toilet paper next week(s), as it happened in Venezuela. In my country some years ago, in a time of crisis for example the government locked all foreign currency in banks, and auto exchanged it for the national currency, at a rate set by them, it was robbery basically, prices would jump up like 25% day to day, so the national current was worthless, oh, they did the same with all the private owned gold in banks or so they could grab, sold for national currency, same scenario I think it happened in Basil too, government locking money in banks.

solaarphunk 9y ago
.... but bitcoin frequently jumps 25% a day on NON-domestic news.... how is it a better store of value?
- lloeki 9y ago
  > .... but bitcoin frequently jumps 25% a day on NON-domestic news.... how is it a better store of value? Z$ record inflation was 79,600,000,000% a month[0] before it disappeared. Bitcoin's short term volatility looks quite manageable in comparison. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#Inflation_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#Inf...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Historically, Bitcoin has had high short-run volatility but also strong longer-term appreciation trend. That means it's been a good store of value, but not one you want, ideally, to rely on in situations where you might want money on short notice with little control of timing. (Whether it's reasonable to project that past behavior into the future is another discussion, of course.)
- shanusmagnus 9y ago
  I love when my store of value jumps 25% in a day.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  That still beats hyperinflation or the currency collapsing outright. Also, what other investment options do you have? I have no idea how easy or hard it is to buy Vanguard shares on short notice in Zimbabwe.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Probably not hard for the elite or upper class, if you have access to the internet and an interactive brokers account.
  - taejo 9y ago
    There hasn't been hyperinflation in Zimbabwe for years. The main currency is USD, with some parallel use of South African Rand, Botswana Pula and Zambian Kwatsha.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    You can’t store Vanguard shares in your brain.
- jstanley 9y ago
  No it doesn't. It hasn't done for a long time.
- cxspoon 9y ago
  bitcoin = fluctuation = jumps up and down prices = inflation = jumps up and up
  - xadhominemx 9y ago
    if you need bitcoin to buy toilet paper, why not just buy toilet paper
    - thephyber 9y ago
      With what? Zimbabwe has been in a hyperinflation downward spiral for almost two decades now[1]. If you hold your Zimbabwe Dollars overnight, they are only worth a fraction of what they were the day before. In hyper-inflationary periods, people would rather buy goods immediately than hold onto cash because the cash depreciates FAR faster than commodities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#/media/File:ZWDvsUSDchart.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#/me...
      - CamelCaseName 9y ago
        His joke is that Zimbabwean dollars are toilet paper.
        xadhominemx 9y ago
        No, I wasn't joking. I was asking sincerely, if you're reason for holding bitcoin is that you want to be able to buy goods next week without worrying about inflation, why not just buy the goods now and avoid the risk of owning bitcoin.
        craigc 9y ago
        But if you spend all your money on goods and then you need something else in a week or two then what do you use to buy it? Sell/trade the goods you already purchased? I think it makes sense to hold on to some form of currency.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  No it doesn't. It has been several years since that was true. Big jumps these days are 5-10%. The recent drop during the BCH pump and dump didn't even get to 25% in day. I would encourage you to consult charts, as most of those memes are out of date.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    3 days ago till now was a 25% jump in price. I was on record saying it was a good idea to buy in at $5800: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679776 it's currently $7200. And 60 days ago I said to buy in at $3k: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134 After Bitcoin crashes, it's always a good idea to buy. A 25% fluctuation is still the norm. Sure, it takes 3 days rather than 1 day, but it's not mistaken.
- mr_toad 9y ago
  That's the the opposite of inflation. Relative to bitcoin, prices of goods and services are decreasing.
drharby 9y ago
...PH?
brettfarrow 9y ago
That's definitely a real concern for some countries, but Zimbabwe has only used other currencies for years. When I went 5 years ago, you could pay for your entrance visa in either USD, GBP, or EUR. All large grocery stores had that day's exchange rates posted near the entrance in USD, ZAR, and at least one other currency (GBP, EUR, or Botswana pula are the ones I remember).
- sangnoir 9y ago
  Things have changed in the 5 years - Zimbabwe now has a (quasi)currency - the "Bond notes" which are officially 1:1 with the USD. Getting access to cash in this quasi-currency is hard, getting it in USD is well-neigh impossible^w^w expensive.
alexasmyths 9y ago
You can go anywhere in the world and use USD, or exchange it for local currency. BTC is accepted pretty much nowhere, and it's difficult to exchange for any given currency. I can't fathom for a second why BTC would be more popular than BTC at least on those terms. Exchanges may be more readily available for BTC, as USD movement is controlled, you need banks etc.. Especially given the level of technology required ... I don't think that Zimbabwe is realistically the driving force here.

rebuilder 9y ago

It doesn't have to have any use in Zimbabwe to be attractive to a subset of Zimbabweans. Trading 1,000,000 USD worth of BTC in a month doesn't suggest any widescale adoption IMO, I do wish Bloomberg had gone a bit further into just how significant this actually is. Dramatic volatility in small, local markets is pretty standard in Bitcoin.

ActsJuvenile 9y ago

Yeah I hate these "Bitcoin is happening in (Insert African/Latin Country here)" type of remarks. For Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to conquer the US market adoption and it is not even close to doing that. All price gains are just speculation and market manipulation.

Pfhreak 9y ago
> For Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to conquer the US market adoption Genuinely: Why is that axiomatic? Why is there no path that is, reductively, in parts of the world where electronic payments are already normal, bitcoin becomes the instrument?
- ActsJuvenile 9y ago
  Because Zimbabwean consumer doesn't influence USA; but USA consumer influences rest of the world. I can't think of any technology besides micro-finance that has trickled-up to USA.
  - siavosh 9y ago
    Possibly using your phone for payment which has been long popular in Asia as well as Africa.
  - yen223 9y ago
    Counterpoint: WhatsApp and WeChat are huge despite not having much of an American presence.
    - FRex 9y ago
      That's not a counterpoint but a confirmation of the first part of the original argument. You just listed two examples of such apps that fail to influence America despite being huge in other countries. To make a counterpoint you need to find something popular in USA with no uptake outside of it or something that influenced USA but came from outside.

lend000 9y ago

Bitcoin is too big for a few "whales" to have a sizable effect on major price trends -- even if significant groups of them were somehow coordinated. This explanation is commonly used in general cryptocurrency forums and even some trading forums, but it really comes down to not understanding how markets work and trying to assign some meaning (not so different from religion). Whales are not gods.

eighthnate 9y ago
> Bitcoin is too big for a few "whales" to have a sizable effect on major price trends Bitcoin is tiny as currencies go or as industries go. What is it $100 billion "market cap"? > Whales are not gods. Sure. But in such a tiny volume entity like bitcoin, any large player can easily move markets. It doesn't even have market makers or any real rules yet.
- freeloop3 9y ago
  The volume today was over $4 billion. Let's say you'd need 5% of that to move the market enough for people to take notice. (Given the large volatility, this actually seems conservative) Are you suggesting that there are people who are regularly buying and selling more than $200 million worth of cryptocurrency a day?
- lend000 9y ago
  > It doesn't even have market makers or any real rules yet. Blatantly false -- you clearly don't monitor crypto exchange order books full time (I do). Even most small-cap altcoins have active market makers running 24/7 for ALT/BTC, ALT/ETH and ALT/USD (where supported). > But in such a tiny volume entity like bitcoin, any large player can easily move markets. Do you know from experience? There are some extremely low market cap altcoins -- you should give it a try. I do not think manipulating markets for any length of time is as easy as sideline commenters seem to believe, and it certainly is difficult to make it profitable. Also note that many of the highest market share Bitcoin investors were early crypto enthusiasts or wealthy venture-cap-type investors, not professional/active traders. If and when there is concerted market manipulation with hundreds of millions behind it, these early adopters are certainly taking heavy losses.

chesimov 9y ago

If you read about what has already happened in Zim, you'll understand why people would do that sort of thing with ease at even the thought of upheaval. I agree with you on the whales but man... back in the 2000s people were desperately trying to change fiat into anything at all that would hold value. Consumer goods like dvd players, you name it. Hyperinflation is no joke. On a side note in places like SA bitcoin is viewed as less volatile than fiat a lot of the time.

sp527 9y ago
If people in Zimbabwe were buying consumer technology as a store of value, that suggests a very poor financial sense to desperation ratio.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  What else would you have done?