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Comment by lottin | Hacker News Reader

It's not like if hyperinflation could be avoided everything else should be fine. No, hyperinflation is a sign that the economy is grossly mismanaged, and that in turn is likely the result of desperate, incompetent government facing all sorts of economic, social and political problems. Switching to a different currency isn't going to fix a failed state, sorry.

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It's an individual citizen's hedge against a poorly managed government in a country they have little choice but to be in (immigration isn't so easy if you're not born into an already prosperous, stable country to begin with).

My friend from Venezuela certainly would've benefited from owning a currency that wasn't regulated by his government, which made exchanging Bolivars for external currency illegal except for those with government connections.

Are you saying one should only be concerned about the state itself, that citizens ought to go down with the ship and be victims of the government they were born into?

I'm hoping you're simply ignorant of the very real personal problems of people born into corrupt and unfortunate countries have that are mitigated or solved by crypto currencies (even if it doesn't solve the problems of the state) rather than simply uncaring for their plight and unwilling to care about solitons for them that don't involve also fixing the entire corrupt nation they were born into.

Cryptocurrencies are not used as currency anywhere in the world, because they have properties that make them highly undesirable as money. People who live in countries facing monetary problems will use a foreign currency if they can, but the thing is, using a foreign currency and avoiding some of the problems of hyperinflation is just a marginal improvement, it doesn't solve 99% of the problems that these people are having.

My knowledge of the usage and value and improvement on quality of life for people using cryotocurrency in nations experiencing massive hyperinflation come from one of my closest friends from Venezuela, who I talk to every week for hours (I'm sitting next to him right now as I type this).

Where does yours come from? Because what you're saying directly contradicts his reported experiences for both him and relatives and friends of his. I'm sure you have an equally credible source on the ground of at least a comparable market that informs your view on what does and doesn't affect the lives of people in those countries?

To your point, many Venezuelans do store their wealth in Crypto, and only convert the amount they need to spend that day to Bolivars. That is the use case.

Where does my knowledge come from? It comes from studying. I studied economic theory, economic history, the history of the international monetary system, and the economies of many of these countries. I read the reports from reputable organisations such as the IMF and the UN, and the regular news sources. So I'm well-informed and therefore I don't need to invent made-up Venezuelan friends like every Bitcoin propagandist does. I know, for example, that hyperinflation is one of the least pressing problems for Venezuelans. Most of them don't have savings that can be eroded by rapidly increasing prices, and the ones that do aren't stupid enough to invest their savings in an unsafe asset that can lose >50% of its value in one evening. Cryptocurrencies improve the lives of absolutely no one, so stop pretending that they do.

And if I were to go through the effort of providing proof of my Venezuelan best friend and his accounts of life in Venezuela, since my hacker news profile is the same name as my real identity profiles, I'm sure you'd capitulate and appologize for assuming anyone who disagrees with you is arguing in bad faith?

For posterity, I have a github profile of this same name, and my venezuelan friend and I are doing a hackathon project to allow Venezuelans to use crypto in the exact way I've described. In one month that project and a youtube video will be uploaded for it.

The person above who assumes that people argue in bad faith and that first hand reports are meaningless is not someone you should emulate or consider reliable. He's lost to his ego and dogma, please safely ignore him.

Privileged people have no idea what struggles others face and don't have much to lose by being wrong about their bad assumptions anyway. Let the way he thinks serve as a cautionary tale.

I doubt the person above (lottin) would be willing to share his identity, and have the foul temper and bad faith arguments of his associated with his real persona. This should tell you all you need to know if true.

Anyway, I won't be responding to the above poster anymore, you know what Twain said about arguing with fools.

Assuming that your story about your Venezuelan friend is made-up is just normal. Even if you did have a Venezuelan friend, how is that a source of authority on anything? It's just anecdotal evidence and irrelevant to the discussion. Like someone here, the other day, who claimed to be a business owner who made international payments with bitcoin on a regular basis... absolutely unbelievable.

If you're really arguing in good faith you should start by disclosing your conflicts of interest. You didn't mention you were involved in a bitcoin project. You probably own bitcoin as well. For the record, I don't have conflicts of interest. I don't have any financial stake in bitcoin or in other crypto-currencies.

To summarise, and going back to the topic of the conversation... your entire claim is that a number of Venezuelans (don't know how many) invest their savings in bitcoin and this improves their quality of life because they're able to combat the effects of hyperinflation in this way.

Okay, so what? Does that contradict my original point? No, it doesn't. My point is that, considering the situation as a whole, having the opportunity to avoid the effects of hyperinflation by using a foreign currency, for example, is only a marginal improvement for these people. Even assuming that bitcoin can fulfil the role of an actual solid currency, which in my opinion it can't.

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