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> In places like Argentina you're forced to use and hold a currency that's depreciating 50% a year. Can we please stop banging on with this trope that BTC is

> In places like Argentina you're forced to use and hold a currency that's depreciating 50% a year. Can we please stop banging on with this trope that BTC is somehow the magic savior of poor people in oppressive regimes? This has been beaten to death already and is just bs. Please try to look out of your western high-earner bubble and see that the majority of poor people in countries like Argentina, Afganistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. that suffer from that rampant inflation have not enough money and assets to buy into the bitcoin ecosystem and make it work on a daily basis. Again, in those countries, only the corrupt rich benefit form this new digital money laundering, tax evasion feature of BTC, as the average Joe there can't afford the $26(??) transaction fee every step of the way when that's the cost of their family groceries for a month. Everyone in those countries with failed currencies use stable fiat like USD or EUR to fend off inflation, not BTC. BTC hasn't democratized wealth, but concentrated in the hands who already owned lots of fiat/assets or those who have access to free energy for their mining enterprises. Poor people in poor countries have not benefited form BTC. I'm not saying that there aren't poor people in Argentina who put all they had in BTC when it was low and sold high and got out of poverty, but that's more akin to playing the lottery than an actual sane financial strategy for staying solvent. >I don't know where the author is from but I am almost certain he doesn't live in an authoritarian regime with capital controls But do YOU live in an authoritarian regime? Or are you blowing smoke based on how you imagine life is in those countries from your cushy western perspective and stuff you read on reddit? Because I spent my childhood in a broke totalitarian regime.

derangedHorse 5y ago
I don't know why the false assumption that Bitcoin fees are expensive keep propagating. Just last December $166 million was transferred for $1.25. In general I've never had to pay more than $5 for a transaction fee. Also, I don't know if living in a totalitarian regime a long time ago makes you all that much more an expert than OP.
bko 5y ago
> Can we please stop banging on with this trope that BTC is somehow the magic savior of poor people in oppressive regimes? I never said it would be a magic savior. I said its a good option for people that aren't legally allowed to hold a currency outside of their own country's depreciating currency. > Please try to look out of your western high-earner bubble and see that the majority of poor people in countries like Argentina, Afganistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. that suffer from that rampant inflation have not enough money and assets to buy into the bitcoin ecosystem and make it work on a daily basis. No one is forcing them to use crypto. I would like it to remain an option, even if they have to buy locally. You're the one that's in a high-earner bubble thinking they can just go down the street and open up a US denominated free checking account. > Again, in those countries, only the corrupt rich benefit form this new digital money laundering, tax evasion feature of BTC, as the average Joe there can't afford the $26(??) transaction fee every step of the way when that's the cost of their family groceries for a month. There are cheaper ways to acquire crypto and there are also stable coins. But it doesn't sound like you're interested in that. If it really costs $26 then obviously that might be too expensive, or maybe not considering sending money through Western Union is often times more expensive. > Everyone in those countries with failed currencies use stable fiat like USD or EUR to fend off inflation, not BTC. In Zimbabwe and Argentina and many other countries with capital controls, it's illegal to hold USD or other foreign currencies. > But do YOU live in an authoritarian regime? Or are you blowing smoke based on how you imagine life is in those countries from your cushy western perspective and stuff you read on reddit? Because I spent my childhood in a broke totalitarian regime. No I don't. But I'm not the one that wants to restrict what people in poor countries can or can't do with their money. That's you. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/6/25/zimbabwe-outlaws-use-of-us-dollar-and-other-foreign-currencies https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/6/25/zimbabwe-outlaws...
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >But I'm not the one that wants to restrict what people in poor countries can or can't do with their money. That's you. Sorry, but if you're gonna make false accusations about me and put words in my mouth, i will end the conversation here and never reply to you again. Good day sir.
amiraliakbari 5y ago
As the CTO of a local exchange in Iran, I can confirm that many average people here are using cryptocurrencies for many reasons including countering inflation. We even have farmers and other low-tech workers using our platform. Buying USD is not that easy here and many people simply use an exchange to buy and save crypto, without needing to do any on-chain transaction at all. Many use crypto when local stock market is not doing good for having profit on their normal savings. Even a non-trivial percent of our users identify themselves as full-time traders. Additionally because of US sanctions many are using crypto to transfer funds to their relatives over the borders, buy games/VPS/VPN/etc, receive remote salaries, or even accept donations for completing GitHub issues. The local or the US government may oppose some of these actions and consider it illegal, but many normal people just use crypto to have a better life regardless, using their hard-earned money, for normal savings or completely ethical personal financial purposes. Those who want to launder money or evade taxes already had access to more efficient ways and presumably are still using them.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > Buying USD is not that easy here and many people simply use an exchange to buy and save crypto, without needing to do any on-chain transaction at all. So people are using IRR to buy “crypto” on an Iranian exchange, without any on-chain transaction? Does the said exchange even have real crypto backing these accounts? If so, how did they buy it, since there's probably no-one out of Iran that would offer bitcoin or anything against rial. On a side note, because the majority of today's use of crypto is intermediated by exchanges (which are banks, really) I'd really love to know how “leveraged”[1] they are: that is, how much of the crypto there customers have on their bank account they actually own on-chain. It could still be 1/1 at this point, but it would be surprising given they have no regulatory requirements and it's such an easy way to make money. [1]: yes, I know, this isn't the proper term, but I just can't recall it right now.
  - amiraliakbari 5y ago
    The parent mentioned high transaction fees, that for some people may equal their whole savings. For these people, the best option is just to trust the exchange. But people with even moderate sums can and do transfer their cryptos to their own wallets. We support multiple networks and withdraw methods and transfer fees can be as low as less than a dollar. In fact our daily deposit and withdraw rates are usually comparable. Is the crypto real and backed? As far as our exchange (the biggest in the local market) is concerned, totally yes. Aside from matching local request and demand and local mining, there are big providers that can provide USDT/USD inside or outside Iran. Then you can exchange them on many international exchanges ignoring all limitations. As I said above, there are many traditional ways of bypassing laws/sanctions and big players actively use them. The cryptocurrencies and exchanges are just creating platforms for ordinary people to have access to it. There are inevitably “banks” and large holders/miners/etc, but the best thing about crypto is that anyone can be their own bank and trust no other person, or even mine their own money. Just as you can setup your own blog as well as using big platforms. The regulation is in its early stages, but even here exchanges use KYC to prevent really bad actions like laundering stolen money. The trust is also more reputation based than regulation based. If an exchange is operating for a long time with known founders, and was able to satisfy all withdraw requests even in low markets when everybody was getting their money out, people tend to trust it. Our users usually do not even tolerate a minute of downtime. But of course good regulation (if there is such a thing and governments are agile enough to provide it) can help to prevent frauds that may happen in any market, including crypto. But probably making everyone more knowledgeable, with a light supporting regulation, is a better approach to preventing fraud.

derangedHorse 5y ago

I don't know why the false assumption that Bitcoin fees are expensive keep propagating. Just last December $166 million was transferred for $1.25. In general I've never had to pay more than $5 for a transaction fee. Also, I don't know if living in a totalitarian regime a long time ago makes you all that much more an expert than OP.

bko 5y ago

> Can we please stop banging on with this trope that BTC is somehow the magic savior of poor people in oppressive regimes? I never said it would be a magic savior. I said its a good option for people that aren't legally allowed to hold a currency outside of their own country's depreciating currency. > Please try to look out of your western high-earner bubble and see that the majority of poor people in countries like Argentina, Afganistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. that suffer from that rampant inflation have not enough money and assets to buy into the bitcoin ecosystem and make it work on a daily basis. No one is forcing them to use crypto. I would like it to remain an option, even if they have to buy locally. You're the one that's in a high-earner bubble thinking they can just go down the street and open up a US denominated free checking account. > Again, in those countries, only the corrupt rich benefit form this new digital money laundering, tax evasion feature of BTC, as the average Joe there can't afford the $26(??) transaction fee every step of the way when that's the cost of their family groceries for a month. There are cheaper ways to acquire crypto and there are also stable coins. But it doesn't sound like you're interested in that. If it really costs $26 then obviously that might be too expensive, or maybe not considering sending money through Western Union is often times more expensive. > Everyone in those countries with failed currencies use stable fiat like USD or EUR to fend off inflation, not BTC. In Zimbabwe and Argentina and many other countries with capital controls, it's illegal to hold USD or other foreign currencies. > But do YOU live in an authoritarian regime? Or are you blowing smoke based on how you imagine life is in those countries from your cushy western perspective and stuff you read on reddit? Because I spent my childhood in a broke totalitarian regime. No I don't. But I'm not the one that wants to restrict what people in poor countries can or can't do with their money. That's you. [0] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/6/25/zimbabwe-outlaws-use-of-us-dollar-and-other-foreign-currencies https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/6/25/zimbabwe-outlaws...

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>But I'm not the one that wants to restrict what people in poor countries can or can't do with their money. That's you. Sorry, but if you're gonna make false accusations about me and put words in my mouth, i will end the conversation here and never reply to you again. Good day sir.

amiraliakbari 5y ago

As the CTO of a local exchange in Iran, I can confirm that many average people here are using cryptocurrencies for many reasons including countering inflation. We even have farmers and other low-tech workers using our platform. Buying USD is not that easy here and many people simply use an exchange to buy and save crypto, without needing to do any on-chain transaction at all. Many use crypto when local stock market is not doing good for having profit on their normal savings. Even a non-trivial percent of our users identify themselves as full-time traders. Additionally because of US sanctions many are using crypto to transfer funds to their relatives over the borders, buy games/VPS/VPN/etc, receive remote salaries, or even accept donations for completing GitHub issues. The local or the US government may oppose some of these actions and consider it illegal, but many normal people just use crypto to have a better life regardless, using their hard-earned money, for normal savings or completely ethical personal financial purposes. Those who want to launder money or evade taxes already had access to more efficient ways and presumably are still using them.

littlestymaar 5y ago
> Buying USD is not that easy here and many people simply use an exchange to buy and save crypto, without needing to do any on-chain transaction at all. So people are using IRR to buy “crypto” on an Iranian exchange, without any on-chain transaction? Does the said exchange even have real crypto backing these accounts? If so, how did they buy it, since there's probably no-one out of Iran that would offer bitcoin or anything against rial. On a side note, because the majority of today's use of crypto is intermediated by exchanges (which are banks, really) I'd really love to know how “leveraged”[1] they are: that is, how much of the crypto there customers have on their bank account they actually own on-chain. It could still be 1/1 at this point, but it would be surprising given they have no regulatory requirements and it's such an easy way to make money. [1]: yes, I know, this isn't the proper term, but I just can't recall it right now.
- amiraliakbari 5y ago
  The parent mentioned high transaction fees, that for some people may equal their whole savings. For these people, the best option is just to trust the exchange. But people with even moderate sums can and do transfer their cryptos to their own wallets. We support multiple networks and withdraw methods and transfer fees can be as low as less than a dollar. In fact our daily deposit and withdraw rates are usually comparable. Is the crypto real and backed? As far as our exchange (the biggest in the local market) is concerned, totally yes. Aside from matching local request and demand and local mining, there are big providers that can provide USDT/USD inside or outside Iran. Then you can exchange them on many international exchanges ignoring all limitations. As I said above, there are many traditional ways of bypassing laws/sanctions and big players actively use them. The cryptocurrencies and exchanges are just creating platforms for ordinary people to have access to it. There are inevitably “banks” and large holders/miners/etc, but the best thing about crypto is that anyone can be their own bank and trust no other person, or even mine their own money. Just as you can setup your own blog as well as using big platforms. The regulation is in its early stages, but even here exchanges use KYC to prevent really bad actions like laundering stolen money. The trust is also more reputation based than regulation based. If an exchange is operating for a long time with known founders, and was able to satisfy all withdraw requests even in low markets when everybody was getting their money out, people tend to trust it. Our users usually do not even tolerate a minute of downtime. But of course good regulation (if there is such a thing and governments are agile enough to provide it) can help to prevent frauds that may happen in any market, including crypto. But probably making everyone more knowledgeable, with a light supporting regulation, is a better approach to preventing fraud.