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by jononor 2068 days ago
What do you mean by "Bitcoin showing no greater volatility than any of the world's fiat currencies"? I pulled up BTC/USD and EUR/USD https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XBT&to=USD&view=2Y https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=2Y In the last 1 year, I see BTC low of 5000 and high of 12000, a 40% difference. And EUR at 1.06 to 1.20, about 12% difference. The year before was worse for BTC and better for EUR. 3x the volatility is quite considerable.
2 comments

Not that bitcoin is not volatile (it sure as hell is), but you're picking the most stable currencies in the world and comparing them to a crypto asset that is younger than a kindergarden class. Try building the same graphs for 3rd or even 2nd world currencies and observe that they might have even worse volatility. I live in a country whose currencies devaluated in order of trillion times in 20th century if you count multiple "monetary reforms" and "denominations".
> you're picking the most stable currencies in the world

OP tried to compare Bitcoin to reserve currencies. Reserve currencies are more stable than average.

Sure, but nobody is pretending that the likes of the Venezuelan Bolivar show no more volatility than any of the world's [other] fiat currencies as they breathlessly hype its potential as a global reserve currency.
The thing is that it's not that bad given its age, and it's improving.
You have to approach it with a pretty wide angle lens, but the better analogy IMHO is comparing BTC to other early day currencies.

Have you looked at USD vol in the 1800's? Reichsmark vol? From that angle, vol of "proper currencies" in their early adoption days tend to start looking a lot like BTC vol. At a minimum, BTC today to USD today isn't an apples:apples take at all.

In my mind, this starts to damage vol = bad BTC arguments in terms of analyzing BTC's adoption. potential.