I'm a dual citizen - my family lost their savings in Lebanon because of banking capital controls. That story is not unique to our generation or history more generally.

> That story is not unique to our generation or history more generally.

Indeed, though I don’t see how BTC could help — it’ll just be one more currency you’re not able to convert local money into, surely?

For transactions yes you need local money for long term savings would rather hold Bitcoin or Lebanese Lira?

Depends on what you count as long term, but based on the 10-year graphs on WolframAlpha? I’d prefer Lira.

It’s not that I don’t regret not putting £10,000 into BTC when it was worth $250/coin (I absolutely do!) it’s just that I expect that degree of variability to work in both directions.

Everything’s fine until you want to pay an entity your bank or government has decided you can’t pay.

In the US, people who wanted to donate to Wikileaks were forbidden to do so.

Even if I wished to pay an entity that I was banned from paying by my government or my bank, the very fact that it was banned would make me worry about being defrauded.