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Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

It's a much more nuanced question if you don't hold USD in the first place. Here I have a choice between holding BTC and holding CAD. Both fluctuate compared to the prices of stuff I want to buy from US retailers.

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They both fluctuate, but not that much. If you saw that much fluctuation in CAD to USD conversion, no US based company would sell goods in Canada. Just look at what happened due to the ruble value fluctuations last month.

You would sell it for the same price just the equivalent in CAD.

If you are in Canada that isn't really true. It is extremely easy to open a USD denominated bank account and credit card. Couple banks have Euro accounts as well.

Yeah, but if you get paid in CAD, it's still a question of when you want to deal with the volatility—point of sale, or point of forex-exchange-during-account-transfer. You still have to deal with timing it right (possibly waiting months) if you want to avoid losing tens of cents on the dollar.

And if you're already thinking like that, Bitcoin isn't nearly as scary.

Bullshit. And this is not a matter of opinion or speculation. There is data and history. Take a look: http://imgur.com/FmpI0HY

That's the past year. The flat blue line around 0% is CAD vs USD. The crazy red line that's all over the place, swinging by as much as 100% in a matter of weeks, is CAD/BTC.

Unless you're planning on holding the currency, those graphs are irrelevant - what would matter would be short term changes (1-2 days, perhaps). And while USD might still come out better, your graph grossly distorts how this would affect someone wanting to use USD or BTC primarily purchases while holding their assets in CAD.

Did you bother to read what I was replying to? The point in question was the risks of holding BTC versus national currencies.

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