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> The norm in this type of countries is to keep USD, EUR and property. Bitcoin is the way to get rich, at least the mental model is based on that. Property is

> The norm in this type of countries is to keep USD, EUR and property. Bitcoin is the way to get rich, at least the mental model is based on that. Property is hard to buy and sell (takes time), and there were a lot of new printed dollars and euros recently.

seibelj 5y ago
Property is easy for the government to seize. Bitcoin, not so much.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Governments seized a lot of BTC in the past. As soon as they have physical access to the owner, it is seizable. Bulgaria seizing 213K BTC: https://www.coininsider.com/bulgarian-government-owns-3-billion-usd-bitcoin/ https://www.coininsider.com/bulgarian-government-owns-3-bill... The US seizing 73K BTC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54833130 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54833130 are prime examples. More recently, US getting back some of the ransom paid: https://www.fastcompany.com/90644461/stolen-bitcoin-is-hard-to-get-back-but-the-fbi-says-it-just-did-it https://www.fastcompany.com/90644461/stolen-bitcoin-is-hard-... In fact, seizing property can have many complications and be very hard(ownership structures, occupant protection laws, debts and obligations etc).
  - celticninja 5y ago
    But with a bank account they don't need physical access to the owner. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/25/british-citizens-born-in-us-risk-having-uk-bank-accounts-frozen https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/25/british-cit...
  - celticninja 5y ago
    Re th last link, it is possible that they recovered the fee paid to the affiliate of the ransomware gang that installed the ransomware. This is possibly because the affiliate was an informant for the FBI. So it wasn't really seizing it, more like returning it.
  - neb_b 5y ago
    Sure it's seizable, but it can be much harder (impossible?) to seize if the owner knows what they are doing.
  - javert 5y ago
    > As soon as they have physical access to the owner, it is seizable. This is incorrect. If the owner doesn't reveal the private key, the government cannot seize the bitcoin.
- krferriter 5y ago
  Your body is easy to seize
- arcticbull 5y ago
  The world's #2 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the Bulgarian FBI. The #4 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the US FBI. Never underestimate the cryptanalytic power of whacking someone with a rubber hose until they give you their keys.
  - gruez 5y ago
    > The world's #2 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the Bulgarian FBI. The #4 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the US FBI. Source? >Never underestimate the cryptanalytic power of whacking someone with a rubber hose until they give you their keys. No forms of wealth is safe against torture, and I don't think people expect bitcoin to be any different. It's still vastly more secure than a bank account (which only requires a phone call to seize) and is trivially linked to your identity (as opposed to pseudonymous bitcoin addresses)
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Bulgaria seized 200,000 BTC in an organized crime crackdown in 2017 [1]. The FBI seized 144,000 BTC in the Silk Road crackdown in 2013, though have since auctioned some of that off. [2] I believe there are only 4 addresses with more than 100,00BTC each. Satoshi is 1. I believe Bitfinex is 3. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-sitting-3-billion-bitcoin https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-sitting-3-bill... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-says-its-seized-20-million-in-bitcoins-from-ross-ulbricht-alleged-owner-of-silk-road/?sh=8ed0f5927655 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-sa...
      - gruez 5y ago
        >I believe there are only 4 addresses with more than 100,00BTC each. Satoshi is 1. I believe Bitfinex is 3. The flaw in your analysis is that you assume that there's a one to one relationship between an address and a person. This is not the case because a typical bitcoin wallet has hundreds of addresses and address reuse is discouraged. Therefore your conclusion that bulgaria is the nth largest bitcoin holder in the world because there are are only n addresses with balances larger than it is incorrect.
mrtksn 5y ago
The inflation is still very low and practically 0 in short term and buying/selling property doesn't take that long actually. People don't buy and sell all the time when they need money, they use financial instruments(property ownership unlocks lots of great financial instruments). Nobody is buying BTC against inflation, it's simply too volatile. You can't know when Musk will tweet what, central banks and property laws and taxes on the other hand are slow moving and predictable.
freddie_mercury 5y ago
Property is not hard to buy or sell in a developing country. What makes you think it is hard?
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  Probably not universal, but it does seem developing countries do not have reliavle title searches or title insurance. Source: tried to buy property for many months in 2 different foreign countries. Havent been able to do so yet mostly due to challenges around title and very poor broker listings / knowledge
  - freddie_mercury 5y ago
    Just because it works differently than you're used to doesn't make it "hard", though. It might be "risky", which is what it sounds like you're talking about. But in many ways it is easier than in the west, since you don't need to deal with: inspections, appraisals, mortgage contingency, closing periods, CCRs, escrow, etc. I own two pieces of property in a developing country and in both cases it took about a day. I gave them cash and they handed over the title.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Neither buying or selling can be done overnight, but usually takes at minumum weeks, probably months to do fully. Bitcoins take seconds.
  - freddie_mercury 5y ago
    Buying in a developing country can absolutely be done same day. I've done it and know several others who have done it as well. It definitely doesn't take months.
    - zsmi 5y ago
      You're measuring the transaction time, and I agree that can be very fast. I've also experienced it myself. But if you measure from the time when the property goes on the market to when the seller has cash in hand, that can take a long time, anywhere. What I mean is, you can put a "for sale" sign up on the door, that doesn't mean buyers are going to show up.
arcticbull 5y ago
> Property is hard to buy and sell (takes time), and there were a lot of new printed dollars and euros recently. Supply is only half the equation. Velocity matters. [1] The new supply was added due to a drop in velocity, and they plan to remove it from circulation once (if) velocity returns to normal. This is SOP - and a huge advantage of centrally managed currencies. There's no doubt in my mind we'd have seen a massive deflationary spiral otherwise. Let me ask you, why do you think this new supply was added and what was its impact? [1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/what-does-money-velocity-tell-us-about-low-inflation-in-the-us https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/wha...
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  You're confused. (M2 * M2V) / GDP = 1[0] That's the formula to calculate M2V. New supply is not created due to the drop in velocity, velocity drops when new supply is added. When M2 rises and GDP stays the same, M2V drops. As you can see from your own chart, when the economy came back to normal in 2015, they did not remove it from circulation. And yet velocity, when the economy was booming, was still dropping. M2 is constantly rising. This is forced because we have trade deficits that force us to accept debt equal to those deficits. The impact was rising asset prices. The value of goods was not touched at all. Money is not neutral. [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F3kb https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F3kb
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I'm not sure I see it that way but open to being wrong. Velocity does not by necessity drop when new supply is added. Velocity is how quickly money changes hands in an economy - an increase in economic activity is an increase in velocity. GDP is calculated from supply and velocity, not the other way around, yeah? [1] Adding supply by decreasing interest rates can stimulate economic activity, increasing both the supply and velocity commensurately. The economy slowed down, money stopped changing hands as people were locked inside, and the Fed lowered interest rates and allowed the supply to rise to incentivize economic activity. The pandemic scared people into saving. The new money is in fact to your point invested, which has led to an increase in certain asset prices, but at a rate that far outpaces inflation (i.e. the same quantity of Apple shares will today buy you a lot more bread than a few years back). [2] As for 2015, the supply was actually contracted in that the fed began unwinding its balance sheet. It was doing so at a good clip. As you can see here [3] the balance sheet dropped from 4.5T to 3.75T before the pandemic. However, to the extent inflation remained well controlled, it shouldn't be particularly critical to do so. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051415/how-calculate-gdp-country.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051415/how-c... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT [3] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

seibelj 5y ago

Property is easy for the government to seize. Bitcoin, not so much.

mrtksn 5y ago
Governments seized a lot of BTC in the past. As soon as they have physical access to the owner, it is seizable. Bulgaria seizing 213K BTC: https://www.coininsider.com/bulgarian-government-owns-3-billion-usd-bitcoin/ https://www.coininsider.com/bulgarian-government-owns-3-bill... The US seizing 73K BTC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54833130 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54833130 are prime examples. More recently, US getting back some of the ransom paid: https://www.fastcompany.com/90644461/stolen-bitcoin-is-hard-to-get-back-but-the-fbi-says-it-just-did-it https://www.fastcompany.com/90644461/stolen-bitcoin-is-hard-... In fact, seizing property can have many complications and be very hard(ownership structures, occupant protection laws, debts and obligations etc).
- celticninja 5y ago
  But with a bank account they don't need physical access to the owner. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/25/british-citizens-born-in-us-risk-having-uk-bank-accounts-frozen https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/25/british-cit...
- celticninja 5y ago
  Re th last link, it is possible that they recovered the fee paid to the affiliate of the ransomware gang that installed the ransomware. This is possibly because the affiliate was an informant for the FBI. So it wasn't really seizing it, more like returning it.
- neb_b 5y ago
  Sure it's seizable, but it can be much harder (impossible?) to seize if the owner knows what they are doing.
- javert 5y ago
  > As soon as they have physical access to the owner, it is seizable. This is incorrect. If the owner doesn't reveal the private key, the government cannot seize the bitcoin.
krferriter 5y ago
Your body is easy to seize
arcticbull 5y ago
The world's #2 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the Bulgarian FBI. The #4 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the US FBI. Never underestimate the cryptanalytic power of whacking someone with a rubber hose until they give you their keys.
- gruez 5y ago
  > The world's #2 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the Bulgarian FBI. The #4 biggest holder of Bitcoin is the US FBI. Source? >Never underestimate the cryptanalytic power of whacking someone with a rubber hose until they give you their keys. No forms of wealth is safe against torture, and I don't think people expect bitcoin to be any different. It's still vastly more secure than a bank account (which only requires a phone call to seize) and is trivially linked to your identity (as opposed to pseudonymous bitcoin addresses)
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Bulgaria seized 200,000 BTC in an organized crime crackdown in 2017 [1]. The FBI seized 144,000 BTC in the Silk Road crackdown in 2013, though have since auctioned some of that off. [2] I believe there are only 4 addresses with more than 100,00BTC each. Satoshi is 1. I believe Bitfinex is 3. [1] https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-sitting-3-billion-bitcoin https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-sitting-3-bill... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-says-its-seized-20-million-in-bitcoins-from-ross-ulbricht-alleged-owner-of-silk-road/?sh=8ed0f5927655 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-sa...
    - gruez 5y ago
      >I believe there are only 4 addresses with more than 100,00BTC each. Satoshi is 1. I believe Bitfinex is 3. The flaw in your analysis is that you assume that there's a one to one relationship between an address and a person. This is not the case because a typical bitcoin wallet has hundreds of addresses and address reuse is discouraged. Therefore your conclusion that bulgaria is the nth largest bitcoin holder in the world because there are are only n addresses with balances larger than it is incorrect.

mrtksn 5y ago

The inflation is still very low and practically 0 in short term and buying/selling property doesn't take that long actually. People don't buy and sell all the time when they need money, they use financial instruments(property ownership unlocks lots of great financial instruments). Nobody is buying BTC against inflation, it's simply too volatile. You can't know when Musk will tweet what, central banks and property laws and taxes on the other hand are slow moving and predictable.

freddie_mercury 5y ago

Property is not hard to buy or sell in a developing country. What makes you think it is hard?

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
Probably not universal, but it does seem developing countries do not have reliavle title searches or title insurance. Source: tried to buy property for many months in 2 different foreign countries. Havent been able to do so yet mostly due to challenges around title and very poor broker listings / knowledge
- freddie_mercury 5y ago
  Just because it works differently than you're used to doesn't make it "hard", though. It might be "risky", which is what it sounds like you're talking about. But in many ways it is easier than in the west, since you don't need to deal with: inspections, appraisals, mortgage contingency, closing periods, CCRs, escrow, etc. I own two pieces of property in a developing country and in both cases it took about a day. I gave them cash and they handed over the title.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Neither buying or selling can be done overnight, but usually takes at minumum weeks, probably months to do fully. Bitcoins take seconds.
- freddie_mercury 5y ago
  Buying in a developing country can absolutely be done same day. I've done it and know several others who have done it as well. It definitely doesn't take months.
  - zsmi 5y ago
    You're measuring the transaction time, and I agree that can be very fast. I've also experienced it myself. But if you measure from the time when the property goes on the market to when the seller has cash in hand, that can take a long time, anywhere. What I mean is, you can put a "for sale" sign up on the door, that doesn't mean buyers are going to show up.

arcticbull 5y ago

> Property is hard to buy and sell (takes time), and there were a lot of new printed dollars and euros recently. Supply is only half the equation. Velocity matters. [1] The new supply was added due to a drop in velocity, and they plan to remove it from circulation once (if) velocity returns to normal. This is SOP - and a huge advantage of centrally managed currencies. There's no doubt in my mind we'd have seen a massive deflationary spiral otherwise. Let me ask you, why do you think this new supply was added and what was its impact? [1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/what-does-money-velocity-tell-us-about-low-inflation-in-the-us https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/wha...

ItsMonkk 5y ago
You're confused. (M2 * M2V) / GDP = 1[0] That's the formula to calculate M2V. New supply is not created due to the drop in velocity, velocity drops when new supply is added. When M2 rises and GDP stays the same, M2V drops. As you can see from your own chart, when the economy came back to normal in 2015, they did not remove it from circulation. And yet velocity, when the economy was booming, was still dropping. M2 is constantly rising. This is forced because we have trade deficits that force us to accept debt equal to those deficits. The impact was rising asset prices. The value of goods was not touched at all. Money is not neutral. [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F3kb https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=F3kb
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I'm not sure I see it that way but open to being wrong. Velocity does not by necessity drop when new supply is added. Velocity is how quickly money changes hands in an economy - an increase in economic activity is an increase in velocity. GDP is calculated from supply and velocity, not the other way around, yeah? [1] Adding supply by decreasing interest rates can stimulate economic activity, increasing both the supply and velocity commensurately. The economy slowed down, money stopped changing hands as people were locked inside, and the Fed lowered interest rates and allowed the supply to rise to incentivize economic activity. The pandemic scared people into saving. The new money is in fact to your point invested, which has led to an increase in certain asset prices, but at a rate that far outpaces inflation (i.e. the same quantity of Apple shares will today buy you a lot more bread than a few years back). [2] As for 2015, the supply was actually contracted in that the fed began unwinding its balance sheet. It was doing so at a good clip. As you can see here [3] the balance sheet dropped from 4.5T to 3.75T before the pandemic. However, to the extent inflation remained well controlled, it shouldn't be particularly critical to do so. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051415/how-calculate-gdp-country.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051415/how-c... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT [3] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...