[chrisabrams]

What country do you live in? Because I know plenty of folks in certain countries with massive inflation and projects such as bitcoin are their refuge from 100-1000% inflation a year.

When you say “in 10 years” when did that 10 year time frame start and end? Are talking about the 1960s or the 1990s? Because most people I knew didn’t start using the internet regularly until the mid to late 90s or about 30 or so years after it’s inception. 10 years is still pretty early in terms of adoption. I know people who still have never used email…

[simonw]

I hear this a lot. I want details:

- Which countries?

- What portion of the population are benefiting from crypto? Is it a tiny portion of nerds or has it become more mainstream now?

- With the crash in cryptocurrency over the last few months are these people in those countries still glad that they used this, or are they regretting it?

I don't doubt that there exist individuals in countries with high inflation who have befitted from the crypto boom. I want more than just anecdotes about individuals: I want to understand if this is a widespread, sustainable trend.

[gitanes]

Argentina. 100% of annual inflation. People use crypto everyday to get money in and out of the economy.

[RestlessMind]

Afghanistan, from a reputed source like Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/crypto-currency-afghanistan- idUSL8N2QU39A

> I want to understand if this is a widespread, sustainable trend.

Why? What if there is not widespread trend and it is only anecdotes? Why should every new technology be "widely adopted or bust" instead of simply being a new interesting tech which a hacker can tinker with just because? Blockchains, NFTs and smart contracts are far more interesting than yet another iteration of a web framework or yet another way to track user data.

[davidguetta]

At least Argentina, venezuela, turkey, lebanon, pakistan and probably sri lanka by now.

Half of the world currencies has done worse than crypto even on small time scales.

[malaya_zemlya]

As of the last month, crypto and certain shady exchanges were the only (known to me) way to send money to Russia.

[toolz]

El Salvador uses it as a government enforced national currency. I struggle to understand how people still make the claim that it's useless or that it's niche - it's a recognized and enforced national currency now, not some neat project.

[upsidesinclude]

If you invested in bitcoin ten years ago, you are happy.

I invested in bitcoin five years ago and I an happy.

Ukrainians are heavily invested in crypto and consider crypto (at a governmental level) to be a significant contribution to their efforts in maintaining their sovereignty.

It's tiresome waiting for the unimaginative and uninsightful to open their eyes

[wil421]

I’ve heard people say this but when I’ve asked people from places like Venezuela they use dollars not bitcoin. Even places with not so good local currency will gladly accept Euros or Dollars instead.

[homeland221]

The irony is even those deal in bitcoin, they have to quickly convert to USD now for fear of further drop. Their entire operation involve in converting their cheap electricity (vastly subsidized by their government) to USD with bitcoin as intermediary. And when ask, they only tell the story of their intermediary bitcoin as though as they really by potato eoth bitcoin at their local wet market.

[pedalpete]

"they use dollars not bitcoin" for their daily purchases. But how are they storing the money they have. Are they depositing dollars in a bank? How did they get the dollars? Are they banked at all?

They can't take a bitcoin out of their wallet and pay for something at their local store. They can't use their bitcoin like a credit card.

If you looked at my daily spending habits, you'd say "that guy doesn't have any crypto or stocks, look, he buys everything with a debit card which takes fiat currency out of his back account".

You can't see crypto with your eyes, but look at blockchain activity, and ask people what the source of their currency is.

Obviously it's a TINY TEENSY bit that is held in crypto. I'm not suggesting it is a majority. Crypto is hard to work with for the average person, it's volatile, and scary, but so was trading on the internet in the early days. Trust isn't there, the paypal of crypto does not yet exist.

[m3kw9]

Could have had similar effect by holding any other currency that isn’t equally hyper inflating. Like the USD

[RF_Savage]

Sadly many countries have currency controls that prevent that.

[stevenjgarner]

You obviously have never suffered in a country with stringent exchange controls.

[drexlspivey]

Get out of your bubble. Countries with hyper inflation do not allow you to exchange for another currency obviously.

[kelnos]

Like a sibling poster, I hear this a lot too, but I don't see it as all that significant. Or, rather, these are excellent uses, but Bitcoin is a terrible way to accomplish this -- it's just a huge shame that there may not be better options.

An actual currency should have a stable value. Bitcoin will never have a stable value (at least not while it is popular) due to speculation. People who believe Bitcoin is a safer store of value than their country's fiat currency are in dire, dire straits indeed.

I do absolutely agree that people should be free from fear that their currency of choice/necessity should be safe from the possibility of 100-1000% inflation per year, but I wish we could do better than Bitcoin, of all things, as a "solution".

[BlueTemplar]

Increased popularity was supposed to make it more stable. Which indeed seems to have happened, with each boom/crash less extreme than the previous one ?

[HWR_14]

> I know plenty of folks in certain countries with massive inflation and projects such as bitcoin are their refuge from 100-1000% inflation a year.

Countries with hyperinflation lend to not have a ton of assets. Even if this were a use-case, it doesn't seem to justify anywhere near the valuation of BTC or other crypto.

And why on earth you would you use BTC as opposed to a stable-coin in that case?

[BlueTemplar]

Because stablecoins - aren't ?

(Well, maybe in the medium term, I guess this can fit some use cases, but the illusion of stability still seems to be a concern ?)

[readams]

There are a lot of much better assets to buy as an inflation hedge.

[toolz]

If you live in a wealthy country, yes, but if you have limited bank access and consequently likely a country with unstable fiat, which assets would you suggest are more stable for long term holding? Certainly not physical assets, as people without banking access aren't likely to have vaults or some way to protect something like gold.

[stevenjgarner]

Crypto is not about investing, its about payments. "Almost 25% of US Cross-Border Remittance Senders Use Crypto" [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32291999

[pedalpete]

My understanding, and I haven't been there in a while, but apparently Argentinians were using Bitcoin and other crypto's to store currency because the government had made it difficult to trade US dollars for Argentinian pesos. Even when I was there, a grey market existed for trading dollars. The gov't tried to keep very tight controls on exchange of currency.

However, recently Argentina has banned banks from converting crypto to pesos.

So, I think we can say that it was happening enough that the gov't took action. If it wasn't happening at all, they wouldn't have done anything.

[aordano]

Very few people here in Argentina actually hedged against inflation with cryptocurrency, it's always USD, EUR, precious metals or high-ticket items (like guns). Regarding the subset of people that actually engages with cryptocurrency, most of them are in it to make a buck, not prevent their money from losing value. Similar story for some Venezuelan folks i know.

To be fair, cryptocurrency as a way for transferring money is excellent; people here move money with Bitcoin, which can be immediately converted into foreign fiat, avoiding the absurd exchange rates and taxes the government imposes. In my opinion that is something that could be done with any black/grey market tool for transferring value, and as I see it, currently cryptocurrency is filling that niche because of network effects, not because of its inherent properties.

[Waterluvian]

Bitcoin is flying all over the place. Why wouldn’t they just use US dollars like every unstable economy has used for the past hundred years?

I just don’t buy this at all.