In my country some years ago, in a time of crisis for example the government locked all foreign currency in banks, and auto exchanged it for the national currency, at a rate set by them, it was robbery basically, prices would jump up like 25% day to day, so the national current was worthless, oh, they did the same with all the private owned gold in banks or so they could grab, sold for national currency, same scenario I think it happened in Basil too, government locking money in banks.

(Whether it's reasonable to project that past behavior into the future is another discussion, of course.)

Z$ record inflation was 79,600,000,000% a month[0] before it disappeared. Bitcoin's short term volatility looks quite manageable in comparison.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#Inf...

And 60 days ago I said to buy in at $3k: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134

After Bitcoin crashes, it's always a good idea to buy.

A 25% fluctuation is still the norm. Sure, it takes 3 days rather than 1 day, but it's not mistaken.

prices = inflation = jumps up and up

Zimbabwe has been in a hyperinflation downward spiral for almost two decades now[1].

If you hold your Zimbabwe Dollars overnight, they are only worth a fraction of what they were the day before. In hyper-inflationary periods, people would rather buy goods immediately than hold onto cash because the cash depreciates FAR faster than commodities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#/me...

Which form? At some point Zimbabwe economy was (is?) so fucked up that currency does not hold any value, so barter is all there is. Money literally evaporates overnight:

> The peak month of hyperinflation occurred in mid-November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe

BTC is accepted pretty much nowhere, and it's difficult to exchange for any given currency.

I can't fathom for a second why BTC would be more popular than BTC at least on those terms. Exchanges may be more readily available for BTC, as USD movement is controlled, you need banks etc..

Especially given the level of technology required ... I don't think that Zimbabwe is realistically the driving force here.

For Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to conquer the US market adoption and it is not even close to doing that. All price gains are just speculation and market manipulation.

Genuinely: Why is that axiomatic?

Why is there no path that is, reductively, in parts of the world where electronic payments are already normal, bitcoin becomes the instrument?

I can't think of any technology besides micro-finance that has trickled-up to USA.

To make a counterpoint you need to find something popular in USA with no uptake outside of it or something that influenced USA but came from outside.

It's also supposedly (I can't remember where I heard that, some tech channel on YT) the only non-Chinese brand that's popular at all in China.

[0] Admittedly I have no idea for context of the picture and had to get it from google pictures since I couldn't visit business insider, I keep getting redirected to a Polish version of business insider that has NO TEXT AT ALL (?!).

Also, what do people find so wrong with me pointing out that "here's 2 apps popular out of US but not in it" strengthens the "USA influences the world but not vice versa"?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266136/global-market-sha...

Even if you're not convinced until you see it conquer USD, you should still expect to see what we're seeing now[0]... weaker currencies falling before strong ones as BTC adoption follows along an S-curve of adoption.

[0] http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/

Deflationary currencies generally will produce less frivolous spending, which is a good thing. Lower time preference [0] vs fiat high time preference of today's economy will result in much more savings and investment vs consumption spending.

Longer time horizons vs short termism that plagues markets now. Overall, an increase in prosperity and economic growth and decrease in debt and credit cycles (BTC immune to M0/M1 credit expansion and contraction = decrease in business cycle roller coaster)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_preference

Bitcoin is tiny as currencies go or as industries go. What is it $100 billion "market cap"?

> Whales are not gods.

Sure. But in such a tiny volume entity like bitcoin, any large player can easily move markets.

It doesn't even have market makers or any real rules yet.

Blatantly false -- you clearly don't monitor crypto exchange order books full time (I do). Even most small-cap altcoins have active market makers running 24/7 for ALT/BTC, ALT/ETH and ALT/USD (where supported).

> But in such a tiny volume entity like bitcoin, any large player can easily move markets.

Do you know from experience? There are some extremely low market cap altcoins -- you should give it a try. I do not think manipulating markets for any length of time is as easy as sideline commenters seem to believe, and it certainly is difficult to make it profitable.

Also note that many of the highest market share Bitcoin investors were early crypto enthusiasts or wealthy venture-cap-type investors, not professional/active traders. If and when there is concerted market manipulation with hundreds of millions behind it, these early adopters are certainly taking heavy losses.

Ripple (XRP): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15203894

But small enough to have miner pools controlling 50% of the hash rate.

And even then, most pools are largely decentralized and heterogeneous -- controversial political/technical changes by the pool owner would absolutely trigger an exodus of hashrate from the pool. (As happened during the BTC/BCH fork.)