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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

The US Department of Justice suspects Binance of processing over $10 billion in illicit funds during 2022 alone. Whatever goes on in Argentinian P2P markets is an insignificant blip against this background.

It sounds like you have a bit of a persecution complex going on. It's unfortunate if the effects on your corner of the world are negative, but it's really not even on the Americans' map most of the time.

How about creating a local solution for your local needs instead of relying on a company like Binance whose operating principles are: "We are not headquartered anywhere, our auditor says they don't know what our parent company is named, but we'll happily transmit money to Iran"? That always seemed like it might catch up with them...

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Because such a company would need to be regulated. I'm not against regulation, the problem is that once you get regulation you also accept to use the legal currency exchange rate, which is expensive for most use cases.

Let me provide accurate, real-world examples:

- 1 USD = 171.276 ARS (according to XE's website, this is the official exchange rate).

- 1 USD = 311.25 ARS (according to Binance's P2P exchange, this is the parallel/black market rate).

In Argentina, most stuff is valued in USD, even if the legal tender is ARS. If you were to buy a $2500 ARS burger with Binance money, that burger costs you $8.03 USD. If you were to buy that same exact burger with a licensed properly regulated exchange, that burger costs you $14.59 USD, almost the double.

This might seem like a trivial example, and a few dollars don't seem to make much of a difference. Try the same example with your weekly grocery store basket, rental apartments, payments of a car, etc. It all adds up and most people here don't earn more than $300 USD monthly (valued in black market exchange rate, of course).

Plus, Argentina and Venezuela are heavily taxed.

EDIT: Formatting of the example.

The legal currency exchange rate in Argentina is a local problem, not an international one. This is not rare in countries with weak local currencies but it is a bit strange to blame the issuer of the currency that you chose to use privately for your troubles. In the former SovBloc countries the USD and the DM were the currencies of choice for the black market, and the official exchange rate was something ludicrous (you were even forced to exhange a certain amount per day at those rates as a tourist), but on the black market prices were entirely different showing the true value of the local currency (something slightly above the value of the paper it was printed on). That wasn't the fault of either the USA or Germany, that was entirely the fault of the party in charge at the time.

One problem with looking at the world through the lens of blaming others for local issues that you declare them in essence unfixable. If you find a way to make such a problem a local one you can actually do something about it.

Well, I was just pointing out that if Binance were to fall down (and by extension, its P2P functionality), it'd make it harder for the people to access exchange rates that have made their lives easier, the easiest they have been.

> One problem with looking at the world through the lens of blaming others for local issues that you declare them in essence unfixable. If you find a way to make such a problem a local one you can actually do something about it.

I'd not say foreign actors like the U.S. Government are meddling with Argentinian or Venezuelan economy, but I'd say that if the U.S. Government were to kill Binance, that has negative impact on this side of the world (which is my original comment).

The core problem with this economy is that most people are uneducated about political and economical issues. All they want are the local government benefits. The state of the economy affects us all local residents, but without the support of the majority I cannot change it singlehandedly.

(please don't interpret my comment as defeatist, it's only there's so much a single person can do).

> Well, I was just pointing out that if Binance were to fall down (and by extension, its P2P functionality), it'd make it harder for the people to access exchange rates that have made their lives easier, the easiest they have been.

I get that, but that's not necessarily the fault of the regulators in other countries, much more the fault of the local government not being able to provide their citizens with a stable local currency.

> The core problem with this economy is that most people are uneducated about political and economical issues. All they want are the local government benefits. The state of the economy affects us all local residents, but without the support of the majority I cannot change it singlehandedly.

I very much sympathize with you, especially in light of the US's past willingness to interfere in those local affairs when it suited their business interests. Even so, the only real solution for this problem can come from inside. Argentina has tremendous potential, natural resources and a whole bunch of other things going for it, I sincerely hope that you and your fellow countrymen will be able to somehow turn this around and make it work.

I'm glad we've come to an agreement in terms of understanding.

Thanks for holding up in this debate! (and thanks for the good wishes, of course).

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