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How would you expect someone in a third-world country to keep money away from a hyperinflating currency, without access to international banking? And no, we-wil

How would you expect someone in a third-world country to keep money away from a hyperinflating currency, without access to international banking? And no, we-will-suspend-your-account-if-you-look-at-us-funny PayPal is not an option. Cash in foreign currencies is extremely risky.

aaavl2821 9y ago
jewelry is a good option, as long as you can tell real jewelry from fake: valuable, somewhat liquid, holds value reasonably well, easy to hide, portable
- adventured 9y ago
  You get massacred on jewelry anytime you need to actually sell it. If you paid $2,000-$3,000 for that diamond ring, you'll get $150-$200 for it from a buyer in a crunch. Jewelry being resold does anything but hold its value, it's a truly epic beating you'll take to the downside. 75-90% of the value of retail jewelry is bullshit, you're almost never paying the bulk of the retail price for the actual gold / silver / diamond, you're paying the mark-up from a store (as a validated trinket, to verify by reputation sharing that it's hopefully the real deal). Take a nice engagement ring into a pawn shop to sell it, you'll get $0.10-$0.15 on the dollar if you're lucky, and that's a good scenario where you're not under pressure to move it to an even shadier buyer. The only way to go with the concept you're suggesting, is to buy actual gold (coins or similar). With something like gold coins, you'll still suffer a discount on a need-to-sell, but it won't be nearly so bad. Do not think under any circumstances that jewelry holds its value in a resale, it holds a small fraction of its value (unless we're talking a million dollar extraordinary specimen (equivalent to art in the jewelry world), but that's a super rare context, and you'll still sell it at a hefty discount in a crunch).
hanselot 9y ago
This is exactly what happened in Zimbabwe.
root_axis 9y ago
The people who are so poor that they don't have reliable access to banking services very often are lacking reliable access to internet connected computing devices and sometimes even electricity. Additionally, trading cryptocurrency for spendable money is time consuming and expensive. The idea that cryptocurrency is a viable option for the participants of third-world economies is absurd. I'm not saying that nobody in the third-world uses cryptotokens but its very uncommon.
- scythe 9y ago
  As society advances, the lowest rung is brought up even though corruption persists. Many years ago, it wasn't likely for people in third world countries to have access to vaccination or clothing, but today we've eliminated smallpox and nobody wears animal skins except uncontacted tribes and people who choose to. Internet connectivity is very cheap in per capita terms and cell phone towers have gone up in places like Afghanistan and Somalia. Furthermore, the poorest people generally aren't the ones looking to evade hyperinflation, because they lack savings in the first place. Venezuela had a middle class once upon a time, though.
  - root_axis 9y ago
    The bottom line is that blockchain token technology is not a fit for the problem of 3rd world banking and hyperinflation, it is stunningly out of touch to suggest that crpyo-tokens are having any significant impact on the ground in these places.
    - scythe 9y ago
      You don't know anything about the bottom line. I made claims about the potential for use, not that it was actually used. You seem to be operating on the assumption that third world = mud huts and subsistence farming, which is very untrue.
      - root_axis 9y ago
        > You don't know anything about the bottom line. I'm unsure what you mean by this. "The bottom line" is just a manner of expression. > I made claims about the potential for use, not that it was actually used And I stated why I believe this to be a dubious claim; crypto-tokens are totally impractical. Your allusion to advancements in medicine and internet connectivity is a red herring argument that hand waves away the reality of using crypo-tokens in the real world. > You seem to be operating on the assumption that third world = mud huts and subsistence farming, which is very untrue. Wow. I illustrated concerns surrounding limited accessibility to internet in the developing world and you disingenuously twisted it into an insult to the citizens of the developing world. You don't even have to venture into a 3rd world country to see the impracticality of crypo-tokens in the real world, they're barley usable even in the developed world, and at the first sign of trouble they are useless, e.g. see how far crypo-tokens take you on the ground in Puerto Rico. Jumbling around private keys, trying to coordinate meet-ups to trade crypto for money, managing all the technical issues surrounding wallet management, insane volatility, transaction fees, the concept of confirmations, client versioning, security best practices, staying abreast of blockchain politics surrounding forks and protocol changes that impact security, price, usability... it's a quagmire of impracticality.

aaavl2821 9y ago

jewelry is a good option, as long as you can tell real jewelry from fake: valuable, somewhat liquid, holds value reasonably well, easy to hide, portable

adventured 9y ago
You get massacred on jewelry anytime you need to actually sell it. If you paid $2,000-$3,000 for that diamond ring, you'll get $150-$200 for it from a buyer in a crunch. Jewelry being resold does anything but hold its value, it's a truly epic beating you'll take to the downside. 75-90% of the value of retail jewelry is bullshit, you're almost never paying the bulk of the retail price for the actual gold / silver / diamond, you're paying the mark-up from a store (as a validated trinket, to verify by reputation sharing that it's hopefully the real deal). Take a nice engagement ring into a pawn shop to sell it, you'll get $0.10-$0.15 on the dollar if you're lucky, and that's a good scenario where you're not under pressure to move it to an even shadier buyer. The only way to go with the concept you're suggesting, is to buy actual gold (coins or similar). With something like gold coins, you'll still suffer a discount on a need-to-sell, but it won't be nearly so bad. Do not think under any circumstances that jewelry holds its value in a resale, it holds a small fraction of its value (unless we're talking a million dollar extraordinary specimen (equivalent to art in the jewelry world), but that's a super rare context, and you'll still sell it at a hefty discount in a crunch).

hanselot 9y ago

This is exactly what happened in Zimbabwe.

root_axis 9y ago

The people who are so poor that they don't have reliable access to banking services very often are lacking reliable access to internet connected computing devices and sometimes even electricity. Additionally, trading cryptocurrency for spendable money is time consuming and expensive. The idea that cryptocurrency is a viable option for the participants of third-world economies is absurd. I'm not saying that nobody in the third-world uses cryptotokens but its very uncommon.

scythe 9y ago
As society advances, the lowest rung is brought up even though corruption persists. Many years ago, it wasn't likely for people in third world countries to have access to vaccination or clothing, but today we've eliminated smallpox and nobody wears animal skins except uncontacted tribes and people who choose to. Internet connectivity is very cheap in per capita terms and cell phone towers have gone up in places like Afghanistan and Somalia. Furthermore, the poorest people generally aren't the ones looking to evade hyperinflation, because they lack savings in the first place. Venezuela had a middle class once upon a time, though.
- root_axis 9y ago
  The bottom line is that blockchain token technology is not a fit for the problem of 3rd world banking and hyperinflation, it is stunningly out of touch to suggest that crpyo-tokens are having any significant impact on the ground in these places.
  - scythe 9y ago
    You don't know anything about the bottom line. I made claims about the potential for use, not that it was actually used. You seem to be operating on the assumption that third world = mud huts and subsistence farming, which is very untrue.
    - root_axis 9y ago
      > You don't know anything about the bottom line. I'm unsure what you mean by this. "The bottom line" is just a manner of expression. > I made claims about the potential for use, not that it was actually used And I stated why I believe this to be a dubious claim; crypto-tokens are totally impractical. Your allusion to advancements in medicine and internet connectivity is a red herring argument that hand waves away the reality of using crypo-tokens in the real world. > You seem to be operating on the assumption that third world = mud huts and subsistence farming, which is very untrue. Wow. I illustrated concerns surrounding limited accessibility to internet in the developing world and you disingenuously twisted it into an insult to the citizens of the developing world. You don't even have to venture into a 3rd world country to see the impracticality of crypo-tokens in the real world, they're barley usable even in the developed world, and at the first sign of trouble they are useless, e.g. see how far crypo-tokens take you on the ground in Puerto Rico. Jumbling around private keys, trying to coordinate meet-ups to trade crypto for money, managing all the technical issues surrounding wallet management, insane volatility, transaction fees, the concept of confirmations, client versioning, security best practices, staying abreast of blockchain politics surrounding forks and protocol changes that impact security, price, usability... it's a quagmire of impracticality.