[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.