Comment by celticninja | Hacker News Reader

Comment by celticninja | Hacker News Reader

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Purchasing power of bitcoin over the last decade has increased, the purchasing power of the Mexican peso has consistently fallen. https://www.macrotrends.net/2559/us-dollar-mexican-peso-exch...

The Venezuelan Bolivar is even worse.

https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/currency

If you saw this happening to a close neighbour then you would also be worried about your own currency.

Not saying that bitcoin is the salve they need, just that perhaps given that context you can understand why it appears like an attractive alternative to the local currency. Also USD and EUR may be better options but I dont think having accounts denominated in these currencies is easily available to many people in Venezuela or Mexico. I have only (last 3 years or so) been able to hold EUR or USD denominated accounts (relatively easily) and I am in the UK. I'm sure it was possible to do for longer than that but it required hoops to be jumped through that are not always the easiest.

Which makes Bitcoin a better investment, but it still a shit currency.

Currency is the thing you retain from earnings or cash investments out into to cover near-term spending needs.

The things important for currency are low-volatility and universal acceptance. Among the things that don’t matter much for it are “does it tend, on average, to gain value”.

In fact a currency gaining value over time, especially at a high rate, is terrible for a monetary system in which you want to encourage monetary velocity instead of just stashing and saving.

If I have a need to pay someone, I use Venmo or Zelle. Bitcoin is slow and expensive and volatile.

EUR/USD accounts certainly has been available in the UK for much longer, but with many of the same problems as for people in developing countries (so I agree with the thrust of your comment):

They've often required either a business account, a "premium"/high net-worth account of some sort, or dealing with an international banking team most normal customers either will never know exists or not have easy access to.

I agree that the Mexican peso and the Venezuelan Bolivar are not doing well, certainly you wouldn't want to use them as currency, if you can avoid it.

I can also totally see people using bitcoin as a speculative investment. That's also not an argument in favour of bitcoin as a currency.

> Also USD and EUR may be better options but I dont think having accounts denominated in these currencies is easily available to many people in Venezuela or Mexico.

So bitcoin is used not because it's a good currency but because it's better than the available alternatives. I guess that makes sense.

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