[igorkraw]

You are simply saying one of two things:"deflationary thing would be nice to keep your savings in" and "the USD is a strong currency". What kept people from buying gold, bitcoin or commodities or other speculative assets in those countries? The fact that they are still a bad currency, because a currency is ultimately what your state demands taxes in and wants/subsidizes for transactions to be in. A currency without a state is just a ledger with faithful devotees, and as we see with tornado cash and the continued lack of a bitcoin or Crypto economy producing basic things like food, it faith doesn't seem to be enough (which is ironic because we call traditional currencies fiat now to differentiate from Crypto, when we should call them tax-based and fiat respectively)

[ljosifov]

+1 on this, you nailed the issues exactly! Bad fiat currency is simply a proxy for bad state, bad government, bad governance. USD is safe and sound as long as USA and USG are. Would reuse tax-based and fiat-crypto - you got that right too - except for fear of all mighty confusion. :-) Money, currency, banking are confusing enough for most people already.

[RestlessMind]

> USD is safe and sound as long as USA and USG are.

I agree. People living in USA or Eurozone may not see the need for BTC since they have good stable governments with well-managed currencies[1]. People outside of those pockets, however, need some option to escape from their governments' corruption and tyranny. BTC is a neutral, and hence better, option. Because if your country falls out of favor of USG, your savings just became a collateral damage when USG imposes sanctions n all.

[1] this sentence might come as a shock to some since news media constantly paints apocalyptic picture. But US and Eurozone is a really good area of the world to live in.

[ljosifov]

Yes, agreed. I understand what you mean. I grew up in "in Europe but not quite european" country. I hope at some point e.g. BTC version 23 is going be as convenient to use as is a credit card - no need to DL 300GB, wait 10 mins for transaction etc, but yes still I can hold my own keys. That will be the technical part solved. The societal part - where we place trust in yet unknown future people, removed from us in place and time, to do useful stuff for me b/c here&now I do useful stuff for third set of people - will follow. The best system that's evolved this far, Fiat - or as a grandparent wrote tax-backed money - is abused often (not by US, EU - they are the good guys; plenty others like Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia etc impoverishing millions - they are bad guys) enough that there is scope for improvement. Trust can be proxied as simple as 1-5 stars... but that may need lots of control - and so on.

[RestlessMind]

> The fact that they are still a bad currency, because a currency is ultimately what your state demands taxes in and wants/subsidizes for transactions to be in.

I guess you have not lived in a third world country. I have, for multiple decades. And I have seen first hand how black market or under-the-table transactions work. There is a huge economic activity in corrupt countries which happens out of government taxation reach. Bitcoin is a perfect instrument for that. Bitcoin or USD or Gold are great options for preserving value of your savings in such countries. For ordinary transactions, Bitcoin or USD are much better since Gold is harder to exchange in exact quantities needed for the transaction.

[ljosifov]

Done that. As a store of value - USD has lower volatility than BTC => USD wins as a store of value. As a medium of exchange - USD paper notes are more convenient to work with (on balance) => USD wins as a medium of exchange. Hence - people in 3rd world countries are not silly or un-informed to prefer another country fiat currency (from a - comparatively - well enough run country), over theirs' (badly run) country fiat.

[RestlessMind]

> As a store of value - USD has lower volatility than BTC => USD wins as a store of value.

Depending on your place of residence, USD may have a high tail risk if your country decides to cross USG's plans. For those places, better to have a non-USD non-EUR alternative. Only Gold and BTC come to my mind.

[ljosifov]

Even when the country gov is hostile to USG, the citizens will still use USD. Citizens use cash, USD notes - not USD bank accounts. No bank accounts are involved. The relations between USG and the local gov bears no consequence to the use of cash. I saw through civil wars in the 1990s, and did not see a single use of gold for anything. The next big state fiat was used for everything. Sorry for the downer.