Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dcolkitt 1797 days ago
Peak-to-trough, the Pound Sterling lost about 25% of its value against the Deutsche Mark during Black Wednesday. It lost about 30% over Brexit. The Aussie dollar fell about 35% against USD during the 2008 financial crisis. The Euro fell approximately 40% against the Swiss franc over the 2011 sovereign debt crisis.

So yes, "real currencies" can and do fluctuate significantly in terms of exchange rates. It simply makes no sense to contextualize exchange rate fluctuations as "annualized inflation".
1 comments
arcticbull 1797 days ago
To be clear, inflation isn't exchange rates. That's a change in how much you can buy in a foreign country with your currency - and how much of your goods they can buy with a unit of their currency, not how much you can buy at home.

Bitcoin's purchasing power fell equivalently the world over and so inflation is a more useful benchmark to compare the loss in purchasing power than foreign exchange is.

link
dcolkitt 1797 days ago
In most of those cases, you'd see similar declines if you benchmarked against a trade-weighted basket of G10 currencies.
link