[oarabbus_]

How would self-custody of BTC allowed this man to pay for his father's medical bills? As far as I'm aware the hospital did not accept bitcoin payments.

There have also been several instances in time where BTC has lost 80% of its value (and many more instances of 50%+), so it doesn't protect against the downside risk of needing money in an emergency.

[siwatanejo]

> How would self-custody of BTC allowed this man to pay for his father's medical bills? As far as I'm aware the hospital did not accept bitcoin payments.

Sell your BTC for cash, in person.

> There have also been several instances in time where BTC has lost 80% of its value (and many more instances of 50%+)

Better than the 90% inflation (or withdrawal "correction") in Lebanon.

[ClumsyPilot]

> Sell your BTC for cash, in person.

This is totally absurd - you need to buy real goods, they are priced in USD, there is shortage of USD in the country. noone will trade with you

your only chance is to pay bitcoin to someone abroad who can exvhange them for USD there and ship goods to you that you can trade locally

[siwatanejo]

> noone will trade with you

There are P2P non custodial exchanges where you can sell your BTC in person (e.g. LocalCryptos), in case you need to stop hodling for some sudden expense, like the medical bills for your dad.

[oarabbus_]

Did you try to search Lebanon on localcryptos or localbitcoins? The former has no listings which transact in LBP, only one which requires Western Union (USD).

And the latter has no listings at all in Lebanon.

[siwatanejo]

Oh well that's interesting. I myself have never had this problem in the countries I live.

[optimalsolver]

This should indicate to you how useful BTC would actually be in a real financial crisis.

[MisterBastahrd]

For cash?

The entire reason he held up a bank is because NOBODY HAS CASH in Lebanon.

[analog31]

Nobody can get cash to sell you.

[headsoup]

Do you mean that cash that isn't worth anything in the scenario Bitcoin is solving for??

[gonehome]

I’m not advocating for putting 100% of your money into BTC, but a chunk would help (especially in countries with less stable currencies).

The hospital might not take it directly, but he’d still retain control of it and be able to find a way to exchange it for something the hospital does take.

[ma2rten]

It might help in this situation, but it's not the best possible solution. Storing it in USD or gold is more stable. You could keep those in a vault or in a foreign bank account. Bitcoin is very volatile and, as you said, still requires exchange, which might also be very tricky in a situation like this.

[oarabbus_]

I do think allocating some percentage into BTC makes sense depending on an individual's risk tolerance. But only as a speculative investment and absolutely not for emergency funds, due to the volatility.

[gruez]

> But only as a speculative investment and absolutely not for emergency funds, due to the volatility.

In a country with a sound financial system, 6 months of expenses in a savings account might suffice. However in a country without a sound financial system you'd want 6 months of expenses in a savings account to protect against your own job loss, and maybe 6 months of expenses in bitcoin/offshore account to protect against a local financial system collapse.

[gonehome]

It's also a hedge against local currency failure and can be useful in an emergency situation as shown here.

Hoarding USD could also work, but it may be harder to get and it's definitely harder to protect/move in large amounts.

[oarabbus_]

>can be useful in an emergency situation as shown here.

Clearly holding Lebanese currency in a bank may not be useful for holding emergency funds. But I do not believe that it's been shown that at point in time an asset which can drop 50% in value over two months, which is the type of acute timeline in which an emergency can occur, and requires transacting into LBP anyways in this scenario, is useful for holding emergency funds either.

[primax]

It would help because:

A: his money would be on the blockchain where it's unable to be seized by the bank.

B: as Bitcoin is a world currency it's unlikely would face inflation to the level that the local currency has

C: if he was unable to change Bitcoin into the local currency to pay for the medical procedures, he could transact with someone like a money changer instead

This scenario is kind of the whole reason the Bitcoin exists

[oarabbus_]

Once he finds a local Lebanese money changer willing to exchange LBP for bitcoin (for how large of a fee?) and sends the BTC, he now finds himself in the exact same situation as the bank - having to trust a centralized entity.

And inflation is also not so much a concern if the value of the asset itself drops 50% in two months.

[notch656a]

Trusting a 'centralized' entity of your own choosing, rather than a limited choice of broken banks, for a short period of time for a single transaction is a big step up to having to trust a centralized bank of little of your own choosing in the midst of a banking crisis _for the entire duration of ownership of the money_.

This is Lebanon, not someplace like France. This could be a money changer with an AK at his side, a buyer with AK at his side, money and BTC changes hands and after the confirmations finish out on the BTC side they're on their way, simple as.

[peyton]

What centralized entity? Do you mean counterparty?

[2muchcoffeeman]

Well even if you had BTC and can convert it to cash somehow, where do you put that cash? How does this guy pay the hospital? Turn up with $30k in a duffle bag?

Somewhere your money has to go into the countries financial systems. Which makes sense. Money isn’t just for trade. It’s to exert soft power.

[notch656a]

I'm just curious how many people here have been to a money changer in the middle east. I've interacted with them in Iraq and Syria. A dude will stand there with gigantic bricks of currency in a clear box on a cart, including stacks of hundreds. He could easily have 50k+ there.

It's all very safe though. There is some guy standing around the corner with an ak behind a counter, and you can be sure 7.62mm size holes end up in the head of anyone who would try to rob the people doing the exchange. On one occasion the money trader made a very obvious calculation heavily in my favor, that he likely did not intend to make. I tried to walk away quickly with the money, and 3 men chased me down. I'm quite sure if I had stolen the money instead of merely gotten "lucky" they would have chopped an arm off instead of nicely asking to reverse the transaction (which I found wise to do).

The whole thing could be extended to BTC quite easily, and it's been awhile since I've been to the ME but it wouldn't surprise me if they've already added BTC to the mixup. From a western perspective it sounds insane to hear large sums of cash could potentially be traded easily and readily in a relatively "impoverished" nation on the street but for these people it's just regular business in the cash-economy world they live in.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Fair enough. My point is that the local power can enforce how transactions work and Bitcoin is still at their mercy. Most governments will want to retain control and crypto isn’t going to change that.

[PontifexMinimus]

> Turn up with $30k in a duffle bag?

If the banking system doesn't let people use their own money that they've deposited, I don't see what else he can do.

[rkagerer]

> Turn up with $30k in a duffle bag?

Whether you're talking USD or Lebanese Pounds, you could fit this into something much smaller (eg. an envelope, with reasonably large denominated bills).

[imtringued]

Soft power? Henry George argues owning land is "hard power" but ground rent is a residue, money can absorb ground rent through interest payments, making money also "hard power".

[oarabbus_]

No, I mean the local centralized entity that would need to have sufficient LBP available for exchange for BTC to solve this man's problem. He needs to pay a hospital, not trade crypto with an anonymous counterparty.

[myownpetard]

That's still just a counterparty. It would be centralized if there were a third actor that mediated all transactions between two parties, e.g. a FOREX exchange or bank that processed the transaction.

That's like saying TOR is centralized because you interact with a "centralized" peer.

[oarabbus_]

>It would be centralized if there were a third actor that mediated all transactions between two parties, e.g. a FOREX exchange or bank that processed the transaction

the comment I responded to specified a "money changer". I don't know if you've used one before, but they quite literally are forex broker/dealers.

Even if we move the goalposts from the "money changer" which was specified, TOR is not really comparable to in-person exchange (not to mention an individual can certainly be considered a centralized entity). Anyways, sure, let's call it a counterparty if you wish, the semantics debate isn't really relevant to the point.

[humanrebar]

> as Bitcoin is a world currency it's unlikely would face inflation to the level that the local currency has

If Bitcoin drops in value substantially, that has the same effect to retail shoppers as inflation.

And with all of the bonkers things to happen in the last decade, seeing Bitcoin drop to a small fraction (like 1/10th) of its current value in the next 2-3 years seems unlikely but not entirely out of the question. And that's a pretty big downside when talking about ones' life savings or even ones' emergency fund.

[2muchcoffeeman]

But if you’re in a place where this sort of thing is necessary (keeping your money out of government or bank hands), you might be willing to take that risk. Because being able to get some money out of the country, is still far better than having no money. Imagine for a second you had to flee and claim asylum. I think it’s fair to say that this use case for crypto is undisputed.

The major problem with this is that these people have to use systems that’s full of scams and the value of their money is controlled by people in the first world with tons of cash to burn.

[humanrebar]

Probably some combination of Bitcoin, commodities you could carry on a person (gold? jewelry?), and real-estate (relatively less likely to be taken than cash) is a good plan. But I'm not an expert.

[imtringued]

>If Bitcoin drops in value substantially, that has the same effect to retail shoppers as inflation.

Yes, Bitcoin doesn't solve THE inflation problem, it solves one out of many.

[canadaduane]

It solves the initial problem of "how do I get my money out of the bank" because you ARE the bank (sort of). BTC doesn't directly solve the problem of liquidity, exchange to other currencies, etc. however.

[Sebb767]

> It solves the initial problem of "how do I get my money out of the bank" because you ARE the bank (sort of).

Unless you use an exchange, which a lot of people do. You don't have to, of course, but you could also keep your savings in cash - which would not only avoid the above problem, but also rid you of the need to exchange it.

[notch656a]

Lebanon is not a country lacking people who keep savings in cash, and some of those people likely need to send it out of the country without suffering their broken banking system. Honestly I'd be surprised if it _was_ hard to trade crypto for cash in Lebanon.

[ThePowerOfDirge]

Seems like BITCOIN has crashed to very low values recently as well: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/harrypotterobamasonic10...

[rubatuga]

They would certainly accept USD

[skybrian]

Yes, Lebanese people with foreign bank accounts were probably better off. But not all USD-denominated accounts are necessarily safe (it depends on the country), and sometimes it might be hard to open an account.