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Comment by Narkov | Hacker News Reader

> The amount stolen was $44B.

Quite funny that you forgot to denominate the currency here. As a non-US reader (we actually exist on the Internet!), it wasn't $44B in my currency.

I assume it is US$ ?

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This is really so obvious that it doesn't merit a discussion.

Yes, it is US dollars.

Why should you assume $ refers to USD?

Because the US is the global superpower. Trade and banking reserves overwhelmingly use USD.

No other currency, and certainly none that use the $ symbol, even come remotely close to the USD.

In my opinion, it is always better style to write US$ or USD than just $ - it is only a couple of extra characters, and it helps avoid any potential confusion

I particularly hate businesses which sell stuff internationally who put $ on their website rather than US$ / AU$ / etc. You can’t assume that just because it is an American company that $ means US$, because some (but far from all) American companies detect the customer is coming from Australia/Canada/whatever and automatically display localised prices. And don’t get me started about the websites that seem to be offering too-good-to-be-true deals on Australian hotels until I realise they are actually showing US dollar prices, but $ instead of US$ makes that non-obvious

All that international trade and banking you talk about refers to it as USD or US$, not $.

To 95% of the world, the relevance and influence of USD isn’t remotely close to their own currency’s. Sure, it’s relevant to some industries and to the larger economy – that makes it like CNY or EUR are to you, nothing more.

I do think a USD assumption is reasonable, but only because the statement was made on HN, which is predominantly American. USD does not own the $ symbol outside of the US.

It absolutely does. If a French person or Japanese person or Brazilian or Russian or Chinese person sees a $ sign in relation to international news, I can assure you they will assume USD.

Of course, a Canadian or Australian, or New Zealander, or Rhodesian, or Zambian, whose local currency also uses the same symbol, will tend to assume their local currency instead. But they are a minority of the world's population.

Why not be explicit if there is room for misinterpretation or confusion, which this thread clearly demonstrates?

Especially on a thread specifically talking about currency conversion.

> All that international trade and banking you talk about refers to it as USD or US$, not $.

That is not true. For example on foreign exchange markets "Dollars" means USD. If you want AUD it's "ozzie", and if you want CAD it's "Loonie"[1], and NZD is "kiwi".

[1] I don't make the rules - FX markets are weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loonie

> This is really so obvious that it doesn't merit a discussion.

It does merit discussion. This has been demonstrated. The parent shouldn't be downvoted for pointing out the ambiguity to an actual global population that exceeds the United States of America by some margin. It's not about being a "superpower" it's about clarity of communication and eyeballs.

Just like the date 04/10/2024. Is that a few days ago, or in a number of months? Wheras 2024-10-04 makes it explicit (in a sane way that denotes a clear hierarchy of values).

I'm guessing 100% of the downvotes are from the "global superpower".

Is it? The dollar sign typically refers to USD if not otherwise specified.

I would consider it ambiguous only if used in a Canadian or Australian context. (Or other country that uses $ for their currency).

Only in the US, just as the NZ$ is implied in NZ, AUD in Oz etc

Certainly when the local media here reports on how much Donald Trump has to pay they convert from US$ to NZ$

I think in most of the world, $ implies USD unless otherwise specified. The only exception are the few other countries that use dollars, where naturally $ is assumed to mean their local $.

Imagine how insane it would sound if I went to a Ukrainian news website and insisted they label their currencies because "some of us are from America (yes we do exist!) so I don't know if this is USD or the hryvnia!"

You'd tell me to pull my head out of my ass, right?

The Vietnamese newspapers are actually using dollars for their local audience for this case when written in Vietnamese.

The actual number in VND is hard to reason about, even for the vietnamese locals. When 1 million VND is 40 dollars, that's not helping.

America is not the only country to use the $ symbol and therefore it is necessary for the purpose of clarity to ensure you demoninate which dollar you are referring too.

The location of the news website is irrelevant.

I dunno

I'm Canadian, I live in Canada, I earn CAD, My whole economic life is in a context of non-US dollars

But if I see $value in an unknown context online I assume it's USD

I think it would be really goofy to assume otherwise

You’re being intentionally obtuse here, we’ve already established that the context is sufficient to make non-USD assumptions absurd and you’re attempting to further the argument by restating points that have already been stated and refuted

Fine, change Ukrainian to Australian and my point still stands.

In my personal experience, Australian journalists are generally pretty careful to distinguish Australian dollars from US dollars from other dollars when reporting on international stories, at least in the article body (headlines less so, but the journalist normally has no say in the headline). Of course, for domestic news, it goes without saying that “dollars” means the local currency

USD (and Euro) is widely used in UA. You actually have to specify what currency you will pay with. Foreign currency may get you a better deal on gas station and other shops.

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