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This reality is just a plane ticket away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe

mmaunder 13y ago
...which is an interesting use case as bitcoin as an alternative currency. Africa is full of migrant workers in less stable economies who need to send money home at low cost and with no delay. e.g In South Africa you can buy a code at a grocery store that you can SMS to your family back home, they go to their local branch of the store and get the funds by giving the code. But it costs and it's slower than BTC. Also banking in Africa is notoriously expensive due to the low per-account balances depositors keep. You pay to put money in, you pay to take it out. A fertile environment for a currency ruled by the laws of nature and math rather than assholes and exploiters.
- camus2 13y ago
  > who need to send money home at low cost and with no delay. Bitcoin is the solution to none of these problems. You cant buy rice or bread with bitcoin in Africa, let's be serious now.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    "You cant buy rice or bread with bitcoin in Africa" Yet.
drcode 13y ago
It's OK, thiagoperes, even people on TV have already confused HyperINFLATION with bitcoin price DEFLATION, so you don't really need to feel so embarassed. In the end, the only people who know you did this are people in this reddit thread, and your userid is semi-anonymous.
- gamblor956 13y ago
  What does he have to be embarrassed about? He was responding to a comment on the volatility of a currency. Hyperinflation and hyper-deflation are both forms of currency volatility. The point of his response was that the extreme currency fluctuations led to prices constantly changing, as much as several times a day. (I had a client that once did business in Zimbabwe. On a trip to meet with local business partners in 2007, he purchased a meal outside the airport for roughly $1 billion Zimbabwean dollars. On his way back to the airport that afternoon, that same meal cost $10 million ZDs!) The inevitable result of hyper-volatility in either direction is that market participants will simply resort to using alternative currencies that are more stable and more predictable. This is a problem for Bitcoin since it is an alternative currency.

mmaunder 13y ago

...which is an interesting use case as bitcoin as an alternative currency. Africa is full of migrant workers in less stable economies who need to send money home at low cost and with no delay. e.g In South Africa you can buy a code at a grocery store that you can SMS to your family back home, they go to their local branch of the store and get the funds by giving the code. But it costs and it's slower than BTC. Also banking in Africa is notoriously expensive due to the low per-account balances depositors keep. You pay to put money in, you pay to take it out. A fertile environment for a currency ruled by the laws of nature and math rather than assholes and exploiters.

camus2 13y ago
> who need to send money home at low cost and with no delay. Bitcoin is the solution to none of these problems. You cant buy rice or bread with bitcoin in Africa, let's be serious now.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "You cant buy rice or bread with bitcoin in Africa" Yet.

drcode 13y ago

It's OK, thiagoperes, even people on TV have already confused HyperINFLATION with bitcoin price DEFLATION, so you don't really need to feel so embarassed. In the end, the only people who know you did this are people in this reddit thread, and your userid is semi-anonymous.

gamblor956 13y ago
What does he have to be embarrassed about? He was responding to a comment on the volatility of a currency. Hyperinflation and hyper-deflation are both forms of currency volatility. The point of his response was that the extreme currency fluctuations led to prices constantly changing, as much as several times a day. (I had a client that once did business in Zimbabwe. On a trip to meet with local business partners in 2007, he purchased a meal outside the airport for roughly $1 billion Zimbabwean dollars. On his way back to the airport that afternoon, that same meal cost $10 million ZDs!) The inevitable result of hyper-volatility in either direction is that market participants will simply resort to using alternative currencies that are more stable and more predictable. This is a problem for Bitcoin since it is an alternative currency.