Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

>I have friends in Argentina. You know how they are protecting against inflation? Good old US dollars

Yeah, go pay for bread at the store with Bitcoin in Argentina. How much is the transaction fee again? /s

I'm also smiling when the crypto bros are still shilling Bitcoin for the millionth time as an anti-inflation snake oil (which I was hoping not to see on HN anymore, but this is why we can't have nice things), when the USD was used back in the '90s in Eastern Europe for this, and is still used in Russia for the same scope today.

Hard stable currencies in cash are so much better, safer and easier to exchange for needed goods, than any shitcoin.

View on HN

I'm from Argentina.

Buying dollars outside the pittance allowed by the government is illegal, so that's not what we are using to buy bread either.

The people selling bread don't know what crypto is so yeah, you will use fiat for "last mile" payments most of the time.

However, crypto is being broadly used here, I know people who have been receving 100% of their salaries in crypto for years now.

Most of the people doing freelance work will resort to some type of cryptocurrency, otherwise when you get paid you automatically lose 50% of your money. The banks, on behalf of the government, will take your USD and give you ARS at half the real exchange rate.

>Buying dollars outside the pittance allowed by the government is illegal

Authoritarian governments stealing your foreign currency out of your bank accounts are orthogonal issues to USD being a good anti-inflation currency.

Growing up in post-Communist Eastern Europe, everyone was using USD but the banks or governments wasn't touching them. People exchanged USD on the black/gray market and storing them at home in safes or various hidden ways. No government and no banks. It worked quite well while it lasted.

Then the Euro came and our own currency got pegged to that so it's less common today except for expensive items like fancy cars or real estate.

With global inflation so high, USD is no longer a good store of value.

Except we're talking about currencies here, because they are meant to be traded, not stores of value. It's impractical to buy bread at the bakery with stores of value like real estate or gold.

And since we're off-topic anyway, there is no global fixed inflation for everyone but each currency has seen a completely different value of inflation, and USD inflation is far lower than most other currencies that saw proper inflation.

You're far far better off having your savings in USD than Turkish lira or Argentinian pesos or Russians rubles or even Hungarian Forints. USD inflation is a joke in comparison.

A money has to be three things: a Store of Value, a Medium of Exchange, and a Unit of Account. Store of value is definitely in the job description:

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/economics/money-and...

Hi kobalsky, this is Rex at DeFiSafety. We would like to support crypto users like you and improve our product to help you. Please reach out at rex@defisafety.com

Are the rumours that "crypto" in Argentina is just everybody being on the Binance app true? (Let's hope not!)

Very true. I'm Argentinean but have been living abroad for a very long time. Early on my career, I did freelance work, and indeed got paid in Bitcoins.

Transaction fees are very low on Bitcoin's Lightning Network.

How many Argentinian supermarkets use Bitcoin Lighting network for payment processing?

Very few: https://btcmap.org/map#4/-36.84446/-66.35742

But that’s not really the point though, is it?

As the earlier poster from Argentina said, pesos are used for the “last mile”. Whoever you’re trading sats for pesos with are likely to be familiar with Lightning and willing to do the trade with it because it’s fast and cheap.

As for the issue of broader adoption, that’s just a matter of education, trust, time, and the right incentives to make the switch in a hyperinflationary environment…

Reply on news.ycombinator.com