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Argentina is probably the best available use case for cryptocurrencies: There's a reasonably well educated population, living in a relatively safe country with

Argentina is probably the best available use case for cryptocurrencies: There's a reasonably well educated population, living in a relatively safe country with decent productive infrastructure, yet facing massive problems due to monetary mismanagement. Sending money in an out of the country through normal, legal means is highly taxed. So it's not an environment so unsafe where the best bet is always just leaving the country, or a place so well set up that cryptocurrencies are far more trouble than they are worth. Bypassing their local banking system is just so profitable, normal people can end up ahead with cryptocurrencies, despite all the well known disadvantages. It's unsurprising that basically any project that even comes close to seeming reputable is going to have attention. It'd be better for the country to have working fiscal and monetary policies, but it's not as if they've just had only a year, or four decades, of troubles in this regard. Changing broken, entrenched systems is just really hard. So yes, every cryptocurrency project out there is probably going to have better chances of success in Argentina than anywhere else. Extrapolating from Argentina to the US or Western Europe is risky though.

LiquidSky 3y ago
>It's unsurprising that basically any project that even comes close to seeming reputable is going to have attention. Or, to put it another way, people in desperate circumstances are ripe for scams.
- wslh 3y ago
  Yes and no. Obviously there are people in desperate circumstances but scamming applies to people in every social class. I can't believe how many successful business people know that invested indirectly in crypto through a "custodial" unregulated fund. Supposely they know that high returns are correlated with high risks. In addition, Argentina entrepreneurs are very unique in the region not only in Web3 but also in computer security among other areas. The headquarters are obviously incorporated in a good jurisdiction to avoid the country madness.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Wait until someone gets compromised and the thief makes sure they can’t verify the theft by stealing their biometrics. Just consider that.
RC_ITR 3y ago
I agree with you but it does feel so disappointing that there’s all this work going into something that’s just regularity arbitrage. The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? I’m just really waiting for a use case where both the cryptography and the decentralized consensus actually matter, and I just haven’t seen one. It’s sad from a technologists standpoint, since right now we are kind of just making complicated systems for the sake of being complicated.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? > That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? Yes. Also evasion of Chinese capital controls, although they've cracked down on that a lot. Not clear to what extent it's being used for Russian sanctions evasion. It's funny, isn't it? The system was built by someone radicalized by the 2008 financial crisis, which was a bank bailout that was for many countries revenue-neutral, and decided to build their own. But the 2008 crisis didn't have an inflation problem, meaning all the people complaining about money supply were wrong. No, the people with inflation problems were countries with forex issues, and everyone there is clamouring to get into the security of the dollar. Even if it's a pseudo-bond pegged to the dollar. There's no appetite for a flight from the dollar. (big exceptions in 2008: Ireland, Iceland, Cyprus .. but again, none of those were money-printing related! You can still have a bad loans crisis in cryptocurrency, and indeed there have been several!)
landemva 3y ago
It's a free handout in a basketcase economy, with bells and whistles to take advantage of desperate people.
pawelwentpawel 3y ago
There are two exchange rates for USD and Argentine Peso. One is official, set out by the government. The other one, called blue rate, is not. With blue rate, the dollar is almost 2x more expensive (https://bluedollar.net/ https://bluedollar.net/). As an Argentinian, there is a limit of dollars that you can buy per month using the official rate. If you want to buy more, you need to find someone that will sell you dollars at the blue rate (~2x more expensive). Due to this, even if you're making good money in Argentina (working for a US based company for example), you'll get hit heavily with the exchange rates, sometimes twice if you don't have a foreign bank account. Source: I spent a couple months living in Buenos Aires. Still, I'm curious about what is the process of buying crypto with Argentinian pesos? Any advice?
- latchkey 3y ago
  > Still, I'm curious about what is the process of buying crypto with Argentinian pesos? Any advice? I'm not sure if this applies in BA, but in other countries, there are expat focused FB groups where people offer local currency conversion services. This often includes crypto. I would start there and find someone reputable in those communities. After that, retail street level gold dealers typically do it too, or know where to go.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    This makes sense. Now, an interesting question to ask in relation to any crypto activity: who's taking the other side of the trade, and why? Who's trading dollars to bitcoin to pesos? I'm guessing the answer is "people who have some means of laundering pesos back to dollars at the official rate"?
    - latchkey 3y ago
      It isn't "any crypto activity"... it is "any financial activity". People trade all sorts of widgets all the time. It doesn't matter if it is crypto or beanie babies. I also wouldn't call it laundering either. If you own something valuable, you should be able to sell it. Laundering implies nefarious interactions and it isn't always nefarious. In general, you can't travel with more than a few thousand $'s in cash. It is also personal safety risk. Having a way to travel the planet and convert locally as needed, seems like a valuable service, for regular people. Of course one might say that you should use 'credit/debit cards' or services like western union... but if you've actually done travel to more 'out there' locations, that isn't always an option, full of high fees or just very difficult to use (things like language barriers and time delays).

LiquidSky 3y ago

>It's unsurprising that basically any project that even comes close to seeming reputable is going to have attention. Or, to put it another way, people in desperate circumstances are ripe for scams.

wslh 3y ago
Yes and no. Obviously there are people in desperate circumstances but scamming applies to people in every social class. I can't believe how many successful business people know that invested indirectly in crypto through a "custodial" unregulated fund. Supposely they know that high returns are correlated with high risks. In addition, Argentina entrepreneurs are very unique in the region not only in Web3 but also in computer security among other areas. The headquarters are obviously incorporated in a good jurisdiction to avoid the country madness.
happytiger 3y ago
Wait until someone gets compromised and the thief makes sure they can’t verify the theft by stealing their biometrics. Just consider that.

RC_ITR 3y ago

I agree with you but it does feel so disappointing that there’s all this work going into something that’s just regularity arbitrage. The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? I’m just really waiting for a use case where both the cryptography and the decentralized consensus actually matter, and I just haven’t seen one. It’s sad from a technologists standpoint, since right now we are kind of just making complicated systems for the sake of being complicated.

pjc50 3y ago
> The USD does all the same things that you describe crypto as doing for Argentinians, so now they just have a more accessible version of that? > That’s what all the billions of VC funding is leading to? Yes. Also evasion of Chinese capital controls, although they've cracked down on that a lot. Not clear to what extent it's being used for Russian sanctions evasion. It's funny, isn't it? The system was built by someone radicalized by the 2008 financial crisis, which was a bank bailout that was for many countries revenue-neutral, and decided to build their own. But the 2008 crisis didn't have an inflation problem, meaning all the people complaining about money supply were wrong. No, the people with inflation problems were countries with forex issues, and everyone there is clamouring to get into the security of the dollar. Even if it's a pseudo-bond pegged to the dollar. There's no appetite for a flight from the dollar. (big exceptions in 2008: Ireland, Iceland, Cyprus .. but again, none of those were money-printing related! You can still have a bad loans crisis in cryptocurrency, and indeed there have been several!)

landemva 3y ago

It's a free handout in a basketcase economy, with bells and whistles to take advantage of desperate people.

pawelwentpawel 3y ago

There are two exchange rates for USD and Argentine Peso. One is official, set out by the government. The other one, called blue rate, is not. With blue rate, the dollar is almost 2x more expensive (https://bluedollar.net/ https://bluedollar.net/). As an Argentinian, there is a limit of dollars that you can buy per month using the official rate. If you want to buy more, you need to find someone that will sell you dollars at the blue rate (~2x more expensive). Due to this, even if you're making good money in Argentina (working for a US based company for example), you'll get hit heavily with the exchange rates, sometimes twice if you don't have a foreign bank account. Source: I spent a couple months living in Buenos Aires. Still, I'm curious about what is the process of buying crypto with Argentinian pesos? Any advice?

latchkey 3y ago
> Still, I'm curious about what is the process of buying crypto with Argentinian pesos? Any advice? I'm not sure if this applies in BA, but in other countries, there are expat focused FB groups where people offer local currency conversion services. This often includes crypto. I would start there and find someone reputable in those communities. After that, retail street level gold dealers typically do it too, or know where to go.
- pjc50 3y ago
  This makes sense. Now, an interesting question to ask in relation to any crypto activity: who's taking the other side of the trade, and why? Who's trading dollars to bitcoin to pesos? I'm guessing the answer is "people who have some means of laundering pesos back to dollars at the official rate"?
  - latchkey 3y ago
    It isn't "any crypto activity"... it is "any financial activity". People trade all sorts of widgets all the time. It doesn't matter if it is crypto or beanie babies. I also wouldn't call it laundering either. If you own something valuable, you should be able to sell it. Laundering implies nefarious interactions and it isn't always nefarious. In general, you can't travel with more than a few thousand $'s in cash. It is also personal safety risk. Having a way to travel the planet and convert locally as needed, seems like a valuable service, for regular people. Of course one might say that you should use 'credit/debit cards' or services like western union... but if you've actually done travel to more 'out there' locations, that isn't always an option, full of high fees or just very difficult to use (things like language barriers and time delays).