[fn-mote]

I’m ignorant of this but it seems wrong.

30% lost in fees??

Can they not manage to open a dollar-backed account somewhere?

Also:

> being stored in a currency that might lose a majority of its value overnight

I for sure put crypto in this same category. “Stablecoin” or not.

[pjc50]

> Can they not manage to open a dollar-backed account somewhere?

Outside the West, the answer is quite often "no". And trying to open an account in the US from outside will run into ID+residency requirements.

[ozgrakkurt]

Yeah no, I it is really really bad where I live and it is similarly bad in places outaide of western financial network as far as I can understand.

Another way to mitigate this scam is wise revolut etc. But they are also mostly western

[kakacik]

Sounds more like social security avoidance, or general taxation avoidance.

Which country will take 30% cut from incoming foreign transaction? The highest combined fees I could find are for Sub-Saharan Africa and those are below 10%, supporting tax/social evasion claim.

Could be completely legal but when folks don't provide details its often safe to assume the worse scenario when it comes to money, taxation and screwing the government.

[th0raway]

What they are often talking about there is countries where the official exchange rate is very different from a real world exchange rate: This happened in Argentina quite often. That led to special black market stores where people would give you local currency for dollars at better rates, and often also had some crypto support. You are then going past the legal market either way.

[lmz]

I believe some countries e.g. Cuba have different "official" vs "black market" exchange rates. A 30% difference wouldn't surprise me.

[fragmede]

> Can they not manage to open a dollar-backed account somewhere?

It's harder, if not impossible, if you've been got the wrong set of papers, or are missing them.

> this same category. “Stablecoin” or not.

Like it or not, USDC and USDT do seem to actually be stable. They've been pegged to the dollar for a while now, with increased scrutiny.