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What country do you live in? Because I know plenty of folks in certain countries with massive inflation and projects such as bitcoin are their refuge from 100-1

What country do you live in? Because I know plenty of folks in certain countries with massive inflation and projects such as bitcoin are their refuge from 100-1000% inflation a year. When you say “in 10 years” when did that 10 year time frame start and end? Are talking about the 1960s or the 1990s? Because most people I knew didn’t start using the internet regularly until the mid to late 90s or about 30 or so years after it’s inception. 10 years is still pretty early in terms of adoption. I know people who still have never used email…

readams 4y ago
There are a lot of much better assets to buy as an inflation hedge.
- toolz 4y ago
  If you live in a wealthy country, yes, but if you have limited bank access and consequently likely a country with unstable fiat, which assets would you suggest are more stable for long term holding? Certainly not physical assets, as people without banking access aren't likely to have vaults or some way to protect something like gold.
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    Usually in stone (buildings/sheds), farmland, or readily usable goods that keep well/provide value (rice, dry beans, generator, fridge). Sucks if you need to run though. But usually if you're wealthy in an unwealthy/poorly banked country and can't leave for some reason, you keep your assets in the place you'd run to if you really had to.
    - toolz 4y ago
      all of those things are fine and good, but they aren't something you can easily put your savings into - you have to save up to buy most of that stuff, and you can't just horde physical items without necessary storage and protection. Further for some people these things all pose substantially more risk than bitcoin. If someone burns your sheds down or salts your farmland because you can't payoff the local rebels, you risk losing everything, with bitcoin, having poor timing on exiting the market is risky, but certainly not 100% wealth loss risk and that's without even considering the aspect that memorizing a wallets secret phrase is the only upkeep you need to hold bitcoin. All of those physical assets bear some form of time/energy to maintain/upkeep and as you mention have a strong downside of making you immobile. I'm not saying everyone should store their savings in bitcoin, but I am saying it serves a very real, potentially life changing purpose for some people and that shouldn't be discounted.
      - hnthrow1010 4y ago
        That has nothing to do with bitcoin specifically though. What you're describing is either someone using another currency or using some kind of digital payment system. It doesn't have to be cryptos.
        toolz 4y ago
        the only digital currencies that exist for people who don't have access to banks is crypto, I believe. Holding physical cash is just asking to have your life savings stolen in places that are poor enough to not have bank access.
- stevenjgarner 4y ago
  Crypto is not about investing, its about payments. "Almost 25% of US Cross-Border Remittance Senders Use Crypto" [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32291999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32291999
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Cool, but the grandparent was specifically talking about inflation hedging, not about payments. Regardless, the article you link does not actually claim what the title says it claims: > PYMNTS research reveals that many consumers (24%) see the option to send funds in cryptocurrency as a key motivator in choosing a payment services provider (PSP), in fact. That does not mean 24% of cross-border payments are made in cryptocurrencies. It means that 24% of people think that it's important that their payments provider supports cryptocurrency as an option (and says nothing about whether or not they exercise that option, or even have an account with such a provider). Also, even if this were true, that does not mean you are correct in stating that cryptocurrencies are about payments. It's pretty clear that far, far more people use them for investing speculation.
    - stevenjgarner 4y ago
      > the grandparent was specifically talking about inflation hedging, not about payments Their assertion: > There are a lot of much better assets to buy as an inflation hedge .. was in indirect response to a parent comment: > Bitcoin is not really a 'young technology' anymore, and the only thing it has enabled so far is risky, unregulated investment strategies, and an staggering amount of crime. I think clarifying that there is a material population of crypto users who use Bitcoin as a currency not an investment is material in this context?
simonw 4y ago
I hear this a lot. I want details: - Which countries? - What portion of the population are benefiting from crypto? Is it a tiny portion of nerds or has it become more mainstream now? - With the crash in cryptocurrency over the last few months are these people in those countries still glad that they used this, or are they regretting it? I don't doubt that there exist individuals in countries with high inflation who have befitted from the crypto boom. I want more than just anecdotes about individuals: I want to understand if this is a widespread, sustainable trend.
- gitanes 4y ago
  Argentina. 100% of annual inflation. People use crypto everyday to get money in and out of the economy.
  - seibelj 4y ago
    This is absolutely true - binance plus stablecoins is how the economy works there.
    - yao420 4y ago
      Any proof? Have you personally seen and used it? Seeing as you’re the CTO of a nft company you clearly have bias.
      - seibelj 4y ago
        I’ve been in this space for a long time, know a lot of people. Lebanon is another country that is heavily using crypto. You will see a lot of countries with corrupt governments and central banks become bottom-up crypto centric, but this won’t be reported for a long time until suddenly the NYT will release an article and only then it is “actually” happening. Here’s an informative episode on a podcast if you actually care https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bitcoin-standard-podcast/id1403202032?i=1000507455113 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bitcoin-standard-p...
m3kw9 4y ago
Could have had similar effect by holding any other currency that isn’t equally hyper inflating. Like the USD
- RF_Savage 4y ago
  Sadly many countries have currency controls that prevent that.
  - acdha 4y ago
    … and that means that if cryptocurrencies ever see notable adoption, those same currency controls will be expanded to cover it. There's this popular mythology that cryptocurrencies are immune to regulation but in reality it's just that most countries don't spend time regulating things which aren't widely used. If that changes, cryptocurrencies are perfect for those governments to enforce since the public ledgers provide an easily-audited track record of all of your activity to compare with what you reported.
    - plebianRube 4y ago
      That is the whole point of bitcoin. There is no entity that can prevent you from using it. Anyone can say you are not allowed, but enforcing it is impossible in practice.
      - Phlarp 4y ago
        Enforcing it is trivial for a sovereign nation that issues it's own currency and collects taxes in that currency. Just as we've seen; they can regulate the on/off ramps between local currency and crypto. If you've got a method to turn meaningful amounts of BTC into USD without being subject to KYC regulations; then the US government is probably already building a federal money laundering case against it.
        plebianRube 4y ago
        Why is it still in use in China then? How are nodes and miners still operating there. You give evil too much credit.
wil421 4y ago
I’ve heard people say this but when I’ve asked people from places like Venezuela they use dollars not bitcoin. Even places with not so good local currency will gladly accept Euros or Dollars instead.
- homeland221 4y ago
  The irony is even those deal in bitcoin, they have to quickly convert to USD now for fear of further drop. Their entire operation involve in converting their cheap electricity (vastly subsidized by their government) to USD with bitcoin as intermediary. And when ask, they only tell the story of their intermediary bitcoin as though as they really by potato eoth bitcoin at their local wet market.
- pedalpete 4y ago
  "they use dollars not bitcoin" for their daily purchases. But how are they storing the money they have. Are they depositing dollars in a bank? How did they get the dollars? Are they banked at all? They can't take a bitcoin out of their wallet and pay for something at their local store. They can't use their bitcoin like a credit card. If you looked at my daily spending habits, you'd say "that guy doesn't have any crypto or stocks, look, he buys everything with a debit card which takes fiat currency out of his back account". You can't see crypto with your eyes, but look at blockchain activity, and ask people what the source of their currency is. Obviously it's a TINY TEENSY bit that is held in crypto. I'm not suggesting it is a majority. Crypto is hard to work with for the average person, it's volatile, and scary, but so was trading on the internet in the early days. Trust isn't there, the paypal of crypto does not yet exist.
kelnos 4y ago
Like a sibling poster, I hear this a lot too, but I don't see it as all that significant. Or, rather, these are excellent uses, but Bitcoin is a terrible way to accomplish this -- it's just a huge shame that there may not be better options. An actual currency should have a stable value. Bitcoin will never have a stable value (at least not while it is popular) due to speculation. People who believe Bitcoin is a safer store of value than their country's fiat currency are in dire, dire straits indeed. I do absolutely agree that people should be free from fear that their currency of choice/necessity should be safe from the possibility of 100-1000% inflation per year, but I wish we could do better than Bitcoin, of all things, as a "solution".
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Increased popularity was supposed to make it more stable. Which indeed seems to have happened, with each boom/crash less extreme than the previous one ?
Waterluvian 4y ago
Bitcoin is flying all over the place. Why wouldn’t they just use US dollars like every unstable economy has used for the past hundred years? I just don’t buy this at all.
pedalpete 4y ago
My understanding, and I haven't been there in a while, but apparently Argentinians were using Bitcoin and other crypto's to store currency because the government had made it difficult to trade US dollars for Argentinian pesos. Even when I was there, a grey market existed for trading dollars. The gov't tried to keep very tight controls on exchange of currency. However, recently Argentina has banned banks from converting crypto to pesos. So, I think we can say that it was happening enough that the gov't took action. If it wasn't happening at all, they wouldn't have done anything.
- aordano 4y ago
  Very few people here in Argentina actually hedged against inflation with cryptocurrency, it's always USD, EUR, precious metals or high-ticket items (like guns). Regarding the subset of people that actually engages with cryptocurrency, most of them are in it to make a buck, not prevent their money from losing value. Similar story for some Venezuelan folks i know. To be fair, cryptocurrency as a way for transferring money is excellent; people here move money with Bitcoin, which can be immediately converted into foreign fiat, avoiding the absurd exchange rates and taxes the government imposes. In my opinion that is something that could be done with any black/grey market tool for transferring value, and as I see it, currently cryptocurrency is filling that niche because of network effects, not because of its inherent properties.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Not if you want to transfer value to the other side of the world..? (which admittedly is quite a niche use case)
    - Daishiman 4y ago
      There's a ton of people in those countries offering financial services that consist of triangulating operations inside and out of the country. Within the crazy insanity that's the system, it does end up working out somehow.
      - 4y ago
HWR_14 4y ago
> I know plenty of folks in certain countries with massive inflation and projects such as bitcoin are their refuge from 100-1000% inflation a year. Countries with hyperinflation lend to not have a ton of assets. Even if this were a use-case, it doesn't seem to justify anywhere near the valuation of BTC or other crypto. And why on earth you would you use BTC as opposed to a stable-coin in that case?
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Because stablecoins - aren't ? (Well, maybe in the medium term, I guess this can fit some use cases, but the illusion of stability still seems to be a concern ?)

readams 4y ago

There are a lot of much better assets to buy as an inflation hedge.

toolz 4y ago
If you live in a wealthy country, yes, but if you have limited bank access and consequently likely a country with unstable fiat, which assets would you suggest are more stable for long term holding? Certainly not physical assets, as people without banking access aren't likely to have vaults or some way to protect something like gold.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Usually in stone (buildings/sheds), farmland, or readily usable goods that keep well/provide value (rice, dry beans, generator, fridge). Sucks if you need to run though. But usually if you're wealthy in an unwealthy/poorly banked country and can't leave for some reason, you keep your assets in the place you'd run to if you really had to.
  - toolz 4y ago
    all of those things are fine and good, but they aren't something you can easily put your savings into - you have to save up to buy most of that stuff, and you can't just horde physical items without necessary storage and protection. Further for some people these things all pose substantially more risk than bitcoin. If someone burns your sheds down or salts your farmland because you can't payoff the local rebels, you risk losing everything, with bitcoin, having poor timing on exiting the market is risky, but certainly not 100% wealth loss risk and that's without even considering the aspect that memorizing a wallets secret phrase is the only upkeep you need to hold bitcoin. All of those physical assets bear some form of time/energy to maintain/upkeep and as you mention have a strong downside of making you immobile. I'm not saying everyone should store their savings in bitcoin, but I am saying it serves a very real, potentially life changing purpose for some people and that shouldn't be discounted.
    - hnthrow1010 4y ago
      That has nothing to do with bitcoin specifically though. What you're describing is either someone using another currency or using some kind of digital payment system. It doesn't have to be cryptos.
      - toolz 4y ago
        the only digital currencies that exist for people who don't have access to banks is crypto, I believe. Holding physical cash is just asking to have your life savings stolen in places that are poor enough to not have bank access.
stevenjgarner 4y ago
Crypto is not about investing, its about payments. "Almost 25% of US Cross-Border Remittance Senders Use Crypto" [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32291999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32291999
- kelnos 4y ago
  Cool, but the grandparent was specifically talking about inflation hedging, not about payments. Regardless, the article you link does not actually claim what the title says it claims: > PYMNTS research reveals that many consumers (24%) see the option to send funds in cryptocurrency as a key motivator in choosing a payment services provider (PSP), in fact. That does not mean 24% of cross-border payments are made in cryptocurrencies. It means that 24% of people think that it's important that their payments provider supports cryptocurrency as an option (and says nothing about whether or not they exercise that option, or even have an account with such a provider). Also, even if this were true, that does not mean you are correct in stating that cryptocurrencies are about payments. It's pretty clear that far, far more people use them for investing speculation.
  - stevenjgarner 4y ago
    > the grandparent was specifically talking about inflation hedging, not about payments Their assertion: > There are a lot of much better assets to buy as an inflation hedge .. was in indirect response to a parent comment: > Bitcoin is not really a 'young technology' anymore, and the only thing it has enabled so far is risky, unregulated investment strategies, and an staggering amount of crime. I think clarifying that there is a material population of crypto users who use Bitcoin as a currency not an investment is material in this context?

simonw 4y ago

I hear this a lot. I want details: - Which countries? - What portion of the population are benefiting from crypto? Is it a tiny portion of nerds or has it become more mainstream now? - With the crash in cryptocurrency over the last few months are these people in those countries still glad that they used this, or are they regretting it? I don't doubt that there exist individuals in countries with high inflation who have befitted from the crypto boom. I want more than just anecdotes about individuals: I want to understand if this is a widespread, sustainable trend.

gitanes 4y ago
Argentina. 100% of annual inflation. People use crypto everyday to get money in and out of the economy.
- seibelj 4y ago
  This is absolutely true - binance plus stablecoins is how the economy works there.
  - yao420 4y ago
    Any proof? Have you personally seen and used it? Seeing as you’re the CTO of a nft company you clearly have bias.
    - seibelj 4y ago
      I’ve been in this space for a long time, know a lot of people. Lebanon is another country that is heavily using crypto. You will see a lot of countries with corrupt governments and central banks become bottom-up crypto centric, but this won’t be reported for a long time until suddenly the NYT will release an article and only then it is “actually” happening. Here’s an informative episode on a podcast if you actually care https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bitcoin-standard-podcast/id1403202032?i=1000507455113 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bitcoin-standard-p...

m3kw9 4y ago

Could have had similar effect by holding any other currency that isn’t equally hyper inflating. Like the USD

RF_Savage 4y ago
Sadly many countries have currency controls that prevent that.
- acdha 4y ago
  … and that means that if cryptocurrencies ever see notable adoption, those same currency controls will be expanded to cover it. There's this popular mythology that cryptocurrencies are immune to regulation but in reality it's just that most countries don't spend time regulating things which aren't widely used. If that changes, cryptocurrencies are perfect for those governments to enforce since the public ledgers provide an easily-audited track record of all of your activity to compare with what you reported.
  - plebianRube 4y ago
    That is the whole point of bitcoin. There is no entity that can prevent you from using it. Anyone can say you are not allowed, but enforcing it is impossible in practice.
    - Phlarp 4y ago
      Enforcing it is trivial for a sovereign nation that issues it's own currency and collects taxes in that currency. Just as we've seen; they can regulate the on/off ramps between local currency and crypto. If you've got a method to turn meaningful amounts of BTC into USD without being subject to KYC regulations; then the US government is probably already building a federal money laundering case against it.
      - plebianRube 4y ago
        Why is it still in use in China then? How are nodes and miners still operating there. You give evil too much credit.

wil421 4y ago

I’ve heard people say this but when I’ve asked people from places like Venezuela they use dollars not bitcoin. Even places with not so good local currency will gladly accept Euros or Dollars instead.

homeland221 4y ago
The irony is even those deal in bitcoin, they have to quickly convert to USD now for fear of further drop. Their entire operation involve in converting their cheap electricity (vastly subsidized by their government) to USD with bitcoin as intermediary. And when ask, they only tell the story of their intermediary bitcoin as though as they really by potato eoth bitcoin at their local wet market.
pedalpete 4y ago
"they use dollars not bitcoin" for their daily purchases. But how are they storing the money they have. Are they depositing dollars in a bank? How did they get the dollars? Are they banked at all? They can't take a bitcoin out of their wallet and pay for something at their local store. They can't use their bitcoin like a credit card. If you looked at my daily spending habits, you'd say "that guy doesn't have any crypto or stocks, look, he buys everything with a debit card which takes fiat currency out of his back account". You can't see crypto with your eyes, but look at blockchain activity, and ask people what the source of their currency is. Obviously it's a TINY TEENSY bit that is held in crypto. I'm not suggesting it is a majority. Crypto is hard to work with for the average person, it's volatile, and scary, but so was trading on the internet in the early days. Trust isn't there, the paypal of crypto does not yet exist.

kelnos 4y ago

Like a sibling poster, I hear this a lot too, but I don't see it as all that significant. Or, rather, these are excellent uses, but Bitcoin is a terrible way to accomplish this -- it's just a huge shame that there may not be better options. An actual currency should have a stable value. Bitcoin will never have a stable value (at least not while it is popular) due to speculation. People who believe Bitcoin is a safer store of value than their country's fiat currency are in dire, dire straits indeed. I do absolutely agree that people should be free from fear that their currency of choice/necessity should be safe from the possibility of 100-1000% inflation per year, but I wish we could do better than Bitcoin, of all things, as a "solution".

BlueTemplar 4y ago
Increased popularity was supposed to make it more stable. Which indeed seems to have happened, with each boom/crash less extreme than the previous one ?

Waterluvian 4y ago

Bitcoin is flying all over the place. Why wouldn’t they just use US dollars like every unstable economy has used for the past hundred years? I just don’t buy this at all.

pedalpete 4y ago

My understanding, and I haven't been there in a while, but apparently Argentinians were using Bitcoin and other crypto's to store currency because the government had made it difficult to trade US dollars for Argentinian pesos. Even when I was there, a grey market existed for trading dollars. The gov't tried to keep very tight controls on exchange of currency. However, recently Argentina has banned banks from converting crypto to pesos. So, I think we can say that it was happening enough that the gov't took action. If it wasn't happening at all, they wouldn't have done anything.

aordano 4y ago
Very few people here in Argentina actually hedged against inflation with cryptocurrency, it's always USD, EUR, precious metals or high-ticket items (like guns). Regarding the subset of people that actually engages with cryptocurrency, most of them are in it to make a buck, not prevent their money from losing value. Similar story for some Venezuelan folks i know. To be fair, cryptocurrency as a way for transferring money is excellent; people here move money with Bitcoin, which can be immediately converted into foreign fiat, avoiding the absurd exchange rates and taxes the government imposes. In my opinion that is something that could be done with any black/grey market tool for transferring value, and as I see it, currently cryptocurrency is filling that niche because of network effects, not because of its inherent properties.
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Not if you want to transfer value to the other side of the world..? (which admittedly is quite a niche use case)
  - Daishiman 4y ago
    There's a ton of people in those countries offering financial services that consist of triangulating operations inside and out of the country. Within the crazy insanity that's the system, it does end up working out somehow.
    - 4y ago

HWR_14 4y ago

> I know plenty of folks in certain countries with massive inflation and projects such as bitcoin are their refuge from 100-1000% inflation a year. Countries with hyperinflation lend to not have a ton of assets. Even if this were a use-case, it doesn't seem to justify anywhere near the valuation of BTC or other crypto. And why on earth you would you use BTC as opposed to a stable-coin in that case?

BlueTemplar 4y ago
Because stablecoins - aren't ? (Well, maybe in the medium term, I guess this can fit some use cases, but the illusion of stability still seems to be a concern ?)