15 ms·

You can see it happening right now in Argentina: the local currency is worthless, and people are flocking to ... US Dollars. Not gold, not bitcoins, but good ol

• ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
  Why do you think that people in Argentina are flocking to Dollar and not to Bitcoin or Gold? When I look at the search trends in Argentina, I see Bitcoin in a very volatile longterm uptrend, Gold in a longterm downtrend and the Dollar being constantly a distant third: https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=gold,bitcoin,dollar https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=go... Over the 20 years which the Peso has been devaluing, Bitcoin has outpaced the others by far in terms of searches. What other indicators could we look at to get a better picture?
  • defrost 3y ago
    They don't think people in Argentina are flocking to Gold, they wrote: > and people are flocking to ... US Dollars. Not gold,
    • ArtTimeInvestor 3y ago
      Yup, sorry, fixed. The search trends are the same for Dollar vs Bitcoin. Strongly in favor of Bitcoin.
      • mupuff1234 3y ago
        Because nobody needs to search "dollar", everyone knows and uses it.
  • dh5 3y ago
    How are search trends the same as ownership of the currency? Also in Argentina it's "dólar," not "dollar": https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=gold,bitcoin,dollar,d%C3%B3lar https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=g...
    • dep_b 3y ago
      Good to see that myth busted. Having spent enough time in the country people buy dollars to save money, there is no other way except investing in real estate and other large investments that are typically only available to people that are already rich.
    • mikk14 3y ago
      Since we are here, why "gold" and not the actual Spanish word "oro"? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=gold,bitcoin,dollar,d%C3%B3lar,oro https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=g...
  • dep_b 3y ago
    People do have an interest in Bitcoin as it's the only way to do transfers abroad that really works. But typically they just hoard dollars. Bitcoin also fluctuated way more than dollars in the last few years, people that buy dollars are typically middle and higher class people that want to save money for their house, going on vacation and that kind of stuff. Risk avoiding people. There are a variety of dollars, the one most people talk about is the "blue" (meaning black market). It trades for twice the official rate, but since you can also sell it at around that price it doesn't impact you that much when you're saving in it. It does hurt when you want to spend that money when for example traveling abroad. https://dolarhoy.com https://dolarhoy.com
  • pavlov 3y ago
    Do people in the USA do a Google search for Visa or Mastercard when they want to pay for something? Of course not, they just use their credit card. It’s the same with dollars in places where it’s an actively used alternative to devaluating national currencies. You don’t search for “dollar” online, you just buy and sell in the street and use it to pay for things directly.
  • churchill 3y ago
    Nope. Searches for oro (Spanish for gold) and dólar (dollar?) far outstrip Bitcoin. Searches for gold and dollar (English) terms are effectively flat and paint a very different picture.
  • raverbashing 3y ago
    People in underprivileged countries have a lot more experience in keeping the value of what they have when push comes to shove Dollar means liquidity, stability and "money in pocket". Dollar inflation is nothing compared to Peso inflation Bitcoin can help with some of those aspects but with much less liquidity and more volatility.
  • tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
    Using Google trends as a proxy is absurd and a total non-starter. This reeks of SV minset.
  • cmcaleer 3y ago
    A very direct, relatively reliable indicator we could look at to see if this has happened at all anywhere recently is the gold premium in China, which has gold import restrictions. Just days ago people were willing to pay ~$100/oz over the international mark price, so there are people willing to spend >5% above the mark on a high volume asset in order to have a physical hedge in the event of a catastrophic failure of the yuan. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-27/chinese-gold-bugs-lift-price-premium-over-world-market-to-record-level-xau https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-27/chinese-g...
  • mekoka 3y ago
    > What other indicators could we look at to get a better picture? Depends how you look at that picture. Let me ask this, if 100 people buy bitcoins and 100 people buy the equivalent dollar value, what proportion of each group will generally be checking how much their purchase is worth on a daily basis?
  • is_true 3y ago
    Try now: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=gold,bitcoin,dollar,dolar%20blue https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=AR&q=g... Not even "Messi" can beat the "dolar blue"
    • ferfumarma 3y ago
      That's impressive! Thanks for introducing me to this term/idea.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• olalonde 3y ago
  What are you basing that claim on? Do you have evidence that Argentinians are not buying gold nor Bitcoin? I don't know about Argentina, but Turkey also has a massive inflation problem and Bitcoin is huge over there. They probably have the highest rate of Bitcoin ownership per capita in the world (or it has to be close).
  • EwanToo 3y ago
    People in Turkey are also massively using Euros, Dollars, and other foreign currencies, right? While I was there last year nobody wanted the local currency, everyone wanted you to pay in Euros.
    • olalonde 3y ago
      Of course, they are. I didn't claim they weren't...
  • hospitalJail 3y ago
    >2050 >Turkey is richest country on the planet due to bitcoin ownership.
• noduerme 3y ago
  Not exactly. I just sent this link to my (Argentine) friends with a different observation. My observation was: The United States is starting to look like Argentina. You must understand: Most Americans are not accustomed to shoving a third party currency under their mattress, or buying physical gold. The phenomenon of hyperinflation is foreign to them, and there's a steep learning curve. The actual significance of this is that metal is being offered at a "blue dollar" rate by one of the three largest retailers in America. Prior to there being any concept of blue dollars here. This is going to influence spot prices. The people buying this are too stupid to even go to their local coin dealer. (Which I do, sometimes, go to my local coin dealer - and trust me - the people there to buy are generally pretty stupid). If I had an hour, I'd like to expound on the significance of Americans buying precious metal at a loss through a giant vertical monopoly. But I'll leave it at the fact that they seem to be starting to alert themselves to the one critical thing that has defined Argentinian inflation for the past 20 years: Bullshit figures from the government saying the currency is stabilized, at the same time as the government takes obvious punitive measures to curb inflation. This leads to distrust which leads to the demolition of the currency. Argentines can take a 20% drop in the Peso with a morning medialuna. Americans have no fucking idea what's going on. Americans have barely begun to put together the networks to measure it - and is evidenced by Costco taking advantage here, Americans have absolutely no peer-to-peer ways of negotiating the value of a dollar against value anymore. That's quite a dangerous situation, because it means prices are psychologically still thought of as an "act of God" as opposed to any true understanding of who is outpacing whom. Like I said, inflation and hyperinflation especially are a steep learning curve. If I were living in BsAs, I'd begin looking for something else to put under the floorboards besides USD. And voting for that clown who wants to tie ARS to USD as if it was 1983 is probably like trying to get tickets to the Titanic right before it sinks. You can do better than resurrecting Menem's economy. (Then again, the Fernandez are even bigger clowns, which is why I refuse to engage in anyone's politics in Argentina).
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • pjc50 3y ago
    Argentina has 100% annual inflation and going up while the US has less than 10% and going down. The USD is not going anywhere spectacular, because there is no more stable country to flee to. The one thing that can reliably trigger inflation in almost any country is oil/gas shortages on the global market, and you can't hedge that with precious metals nor store a 20 year supply in your house.
• once_inc 3y ago
  To my knowledge, Crypto is pretty big in Argentina, with Bitcoin, Tron, and tether the biggest players.
• rightbyte 3y ago
  > You have to figure out how to convert that gold into something somebody will actually take You need coins. You can't walk around with a gold bar. I would say silver coins to keep the value down, too. As a "my government made our money useless" back up. USD cash are good too unless you are American, obviously.
  • Kinrany 3y ago
    You can't use coins without someone enforcing rules against counterfeit.
  • dullcrisp 3y ago
    Seems if you’re an American, having your money in USD would be doubly useful!
  • Frost1x 3y ago
    >As a "my government made our money useless" back up. I think that's where you first get into "some other governments money may be less useless" as a first stage backup. Precious metals in direct ownership are really a hedge against all or most other governments money collapsing. Until you reach a global societal collapse, having gold in your possession seems like a negative ROI and I wonder if, should that case happen, would precious metals again become the medium of exchange or something else (peoples' opinions have changed and a fist full of diamonds might not be as valuable to me as say fresh drinking water should such a thing happen). It would likely depend on the cause of global collapse and what people consider valuable (obviously, but it probably needs stated). Precious metals seem to be a good medium of exchange historically only at a certain level of assumed societal infrastructure, similar to our fiat currencies. Cavemen and small tribes cared little of precious metals and would rather trade land, access rights, livestock, etc.
    • RandomLensman 3y ago
      In collapsed societies gold isn't great either. You would want to have things that people actually need. Some gold might buy you some antibiotics but the valuable thing isn't the gold and the antibiotics seller would know that.
• altacc 3y ago
  I notice this when travelling the world and it's one of the main reasons I think the many of the arguments for cryptocurrency are flawed. I've used decades old dollar bills in SE Asia that have been pretty much detached from the US economy for decades and have held value better than bitcoin ever has. The value of the dollar is linked not just to the US economy but also a global black economy and that has some unoffical influence on exchange rates & dollar value.
  • idiotsecant 3y ago
    This will be true right up until the point it is not. The US dollar dominance is not a feature of the universe, it's a social agreement that, like any such agreement, will eventually come undone.
    • VHRanger 3y ago
      Cryptocurrencies are inherently bad currencies because of price volatility (except stable coins). That also makes them good speculative assets fwiw
      • adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
        and stablecoins are always fraudulent
        • mikhailfranco 3y ago
          Usually. But only if they offer you an intetest rate dramatically above the short-term rate on the corresponding govt bill/bond - e.g USD 2yr.
        • idiotsecant 3y ago
          Interesting. You sound like you know a lot about the subject, to be so confident. Could you please explain how, for example, DAI is fraudulent?
      • f33d5173 3y ago
• kylebenzle 3y ago
  It's unclear to me why so many people seem to think it is difficult to sell precious metals? I can sell my silver gold down the street for 95% of spot any day, or if I want to wait for a check in the mail I can send it overnight to Max and get 99% spot. Within 48 hours I can easily convert my precious metal to bitcoin, cash or get a check. People's general fear of holding and using gold seems to be very similar to the unfounded concerns with Bitcoin. I think people just don't trust themselves with money.
  • pcdoodle 3y ago
    Another speculation: people hate making financial decisions with any perceived risk. Fear of Shame. So imagine the cognitive dissonance when a sizable "team" picks a product that's not part of the perceived friendly and safe. These "alternative" products also require responsibility without anyone else to blame but yourself for mistakes.
• LeFantome 3y ago
  You do it trade 1 oz gold bars for goods. You are not trying to buy sugar with them. They are for paying off the border guard when a family member does not have the right docs or the low level soldier checking lottery numbers to see if you can get on the escape vehicle or enter the bunker. These are real “world is going to fall apart” hedges. I am not expecting a crisis of that level in my neighbourhood but they have certainly happened before ( crossing borders in WWII took a few diamond earrings perhaps ) and there are risks now that are bigger than ever.