[analog31]

Sounds like the next startup mecca. Now, before bitcoin, where did smart people put their savings? Probably, any money that wasn't needed for immediate liquidity went into dollars or euro or securities denominated in those currencies.

The present state of the art is that cryptocurrency is an arbitrage that converts subsidized electricity into value that can be transported out of the country.

[notch656a]

Without bitcoin I would still advise putting savings in stocks, bonds, a little precious metals maybe. I don't see bitcoin as savings as much as a currency or insurance policy against all your material assets and bank accounts being seized and/or stolen.

>that can be transported out of the country.

There's a lot of value in this though, no? The 10k limit on undeclared financial instruments held in your personal custody through customs and KYC/AML laws in banking mean crypto fits a big void that was previously much harder to fill.

[analog31]

Would those stocks be denominated in Syrian currency, or something else?

Indeed, as I've said in the past, money is a technology, and different technologies can be applied to different purposes. The "major" world currencies are designed to be used as a temporary store of value, medium of exchange, and instrument of economic policy. Bitcoin could be applied towards different purposes.

>>> There's a lot of value in this though, no?

Sure, a subsidy is by definition a source of value.

[notch656a]

Stocks would continue to be denominated in shares. I've never heard of a stock being denominated in currency, but maybe there is one out there like that. A share is usually something like I own 1/N of the interest in the company so the formula of ownership is m/N where m is number shares you own and N is the number of total shares (some simplification here, but roughly accurate). Market clearing determines how much people will pay for a stock, which happens in all sorts of currencies.

[analog31]

Ah, that's fair.