Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by headsoup 1306 days ago
Ooh yes and the value of bitcoin dropping 2/3 in a year is a wonderful thing for those oppressed countries right?

Are these people getting value for money with crypto or is someone fleecing them an awful lot for the privilege or not using fiat? Always these third person anecdotes without any actual evidence.

The other thing is not being controlled by government seems to imply either not controlled, or controlled by 'good' people, of which neither seems to be turning out true in any case.

1 comments

Your oh so enlightened west European point of view misses the fact that the fiat in this case is not the dollar or the euro. It's the Turkish Lira, Bolivars or Lebanese points. It's not the money that France controls and prints (its not euro) for their ex-colonies.

Is everyone using bitcoin good people? Definitely no. Is it used by criminals? Yes. Drug dealers are definitely criminals, just as the people protesting for fair elections in Belarus or the feminist coalition fighting to end police brutality in Nigeria. Those are all criminals.

But If you have any idea of how can these people participate in the economy without permission (stables fail here) that isn't volatile please let us hear about your idea.

People commonly use Dollars and Euros in those countries to store their cash. I have seen this first hand, especially in South America and there are advertisements for that everywhere. Where that is illegal, crypto is/can be also illegal.
My country currently charges me 1%/mo for every USD/EUR account, there is no cash in ATMs for months and no way to take more than a vacation penny with you when you leave.

Where that is illegal, crypto is/can be also illegal

There’s a big difference between illegal and physically seizable.

Paper bills are scarce and pack a premium in these places. Meanwhile someone could learn marketable skills over the internet and receive digital currency. You can argue stables are better but those aren't trustworthy.
So what's your evidence all these people are using crypto and what are they using it for?