I can't think of any country I've been to other than the US which let me withdrawal USD from an ATM.
When telling friends about some of the benefits of Crypto, I often use Argentina as an example, but this one comment regarding ATM -> USD I think is hurting the credibility of this author.
Have you been to Argentina or even anywhere in Latin America? You can't just visit a country like, say, Sweden and use Swedish Kronas or Korea and use Korean Wons and from there extrapolate that in $country you just use $local_country_currency and it's as simple as that.
In countries where the local currency is unstable, transacting in USD in some manner is just a fact of life. Eg People in Costa Rica who work for US corporations may just get paid partially in USD, as well as in Colóns.
More to the point is that the reason the expectation is there, is that Argentinians used to be able to visit the ATM and pull out USD until currency controls were enacted, and that the surprise is that even US citizens can't pull out USD.
Did I miss some weird constitutional amendment that American citizens have super-duper special status at overseas ATMs?
The fact of US citizenship is entirely irrelevant to what notes come out of an ATM.
If you had the luck to be born in a country with a strong currency, like Sweden, you're also blessed with this privilege, but if you're from a different country, like say, Argentina, then you're only allowed to trade a certain amount before you're cut off, which the bank, and by extension the ATM will check. It's less about US citizens having some super-duper special status, but that they have rights that people that only have Argentinian citizenship don't have.
Of course, being a US citizen isn't going to magically turn the bills inside the ATM into USD, but prior to the currency controls, Argentinian ATMs had USD to dispense, to both Argentina and US citizens, as well as citizens of other countries.
The stated goals of Argentina's currency controls was to stop the out flow of Pesos to USD. An American tourist visiting Argentina is going to spend their money in Argentina while they are there, which, no matter how you denominate it, which would be an inflow of money to Argentina.
When the controls were announced, the banks went overboard implementing their blocking, which also prevented this inflow of money into the country. Which is why it's remarkable.
No, it's not. Your card issuer and the ATM owner participating in compatible interbank networks is what's relevant.
Seriously, "even a US citizen couldn't get USD out of an Argentine ATM" is a massive distraction to the point you're trying to make.
#1 has 10x the GDP compared to #2.
You can get USD out of Citibank ATMs in Hong Kong (and many many others too, I just happen to use Citi last week).
I’d guess “dollarized” non-US countries definitely do too.
Even though for accounting reasons Panama calls it Balboa, its actually USD banknotes and Balboa coins at a 1=1 exchange rate.