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Comment by ricardobayes | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing wrong with the global financial system. I can already send money electronically to anyone by way of bank transfer. In Europe, it's even easier, faster and cheaper than sending crypto.

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Indeed, and wiring money overseas has also never been easier. I regularly send money from Norway to family in Africa using online remittance services (there's quite a few to pick from) and it usually takes less than 15 minutes for the money to go through (and they get a pick up notice from their bank). Because of competition, the FX rates are very good. No crypto involved.

You have a comfortable life. Many don't. Side note: what appears to be instantaneous settlement in fact, is not.

Someone who is not comfortable should stay far away from cryptocurrencies, because they may not survive the loss of all their money to a hack.

Someone who's not comfortable is probably facing the decimation of their native currency already, as what's happening in several "modern" countries at the moment.

What would you pick? Sketchy native currency with a near guaranteed loss of 80%+ or a volatile crypto asset?

People in countries that had inflation problems had ways to cope: back in the 80s when inflation was high there were money market funds that paid interest that kept up with inflation, for example. The baby boomers got rich because they could pay back their loans with cheap money. Inflation helps debtors. On the other hand, deflation destroys economies as it gets people with money hoarding it. If you look at times in history when national currencies we're going up in value those are exactly the times when the economy was collapsing.

I'm guessing this is pretty dependent on which country in Africa you're sending to. Probably not Zimbabwe?

You'd be surprised: https://www.worldremit.com/en/zimbabwe/faq/cash-pickup

Nothing wrong in your perspective? How fortunate for you.

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