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A comment on Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend. Parent comment

Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by loveparade on Saturday March 11, 2023 @01:11AM (#35105939)
No, in many countries you cannot buy USD directly. You also cannot store USD in a local bank account. And in various places it's explicitly forbidden to hold USD as savings because it would devalue local currency if everyone started transacting in USD instead.

So, the "C" makes USD exposure available to anyone worldwide, assuming you have e.g. an Ethereum wallet.

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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by pHollda on Saturday March 11, 2023 @01:36AM (#35106059)
If anyone doubts that this is just a theory, I can confirm it. I live in third-world countries and use USDC exactly for this.
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by FabHK on Saturday March 11, 2023 @04:28AM (#35106823)
I have lived and travelled extensively in second and third world countries, and almost never had a problem buying or selling USD. Well, in some places there were indeed capital controls (Argentina, China), but that's rare, and I doubt use of USDC is legal then for the circumvention of regulation (which is basically the only use case of crypto).
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by kaladin_1 on Saturday March 11, 2023 @05:33AM (#35107103)
If only you know the long queue you have to join now if you want to buy dollars from a Nigerian bank. Not just that you have to fill a form saying what the money is for which had better be one of the things in their list, you have to wait for months to get credited.
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by capableweb on Saturday March 11, 2023 @07:08AM (#35107625)
Many people visiting countries saying "I have been able to use USD wherever I go, I could even pay for dinners" miss the fact that it's often different for the people who live there, who are gonna have to integrate with the local legal/financial process in order to get their local currency. The tourist hardly have to care about it, and then they tell the internet that there is no problems.
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by capableweb on Saturday March 11, 2023 @07:07AM (#35107617)
I have family in third-world countries, and usually have them buy me flight tickets when I want to visit them. Cheapest way and easiest for them to withdraw, is me sending them USDC. Some of them use USDC directly to exchange with friends for goods and services, others manage to sell them P2P in their country for USD, which they can then trade for local currency.

Messy, inefficient and UX could be way better, but it works and is cheapest for everyone involved.

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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by Scoundreller on Saturday March 11, 2023 @01:43AM (#35106087)
The big one is that many countries do offer foreign currency accounts, but don’t properly hold reserves for them, so the security is there until it isn’t.
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by FabHK on Saturday March 11, 2023 @04:28AM (#35106825)
So a bit like stable coins? And do you have a source?
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by Scoundreller on Saturday March 11, 2023 @04:40AM (#35106872)
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/2022/2/3/lebanon-us-do...

> No withdrawals were allowed from accounts denominated in U.S. dollars, unless the owner agreed to convert the funds into pesos.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corralito

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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by FabHK on Saturday March 11, 2023 @12:15PM (#35110363)
These appear to be cases where government regulation was imposed to limit access to foreign currency. Not, as you seemed to be insinuating ("but don’t properly hold reserves for them"), any problem with banks carrying insufficient reserves.

So, there was neither a technological problem moving fiat in our out of the country that would be amenable to a technological fix, nor unintended weaknesses in the regulatory regime covering local banks. Rather, it was deliberate government policy.

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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by Scoundreller on Saturday March 11, 2023 @01:34PM (#35111152)
> These appear to be cases where government regulation was imposed to limit access to foreign currency.

Cuz they spent/seized the bank’s foreign currency before you, the depositor, could spend them. So much for trying to protect your assets by holding them in foreign currency.

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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by re-thc on Saturday March 11, 2023 @03:05AM (#35106433)
Except it does a lot more than that as highlighted here. It's not just a USD + exposure. It's pretend to be USD + its own set of risks. I'd rather buy USD or if you can't then do something else.
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by vasco on Saturday March 11, 2023 @03:56AM (#35106676)
So you are saying that there are countries where USDC is legal while opening a foreign brokerage account like IBKR and converting your currency to USD is illegal? And this is not just a perceived loophole? Could you give an example of a country like this so I could google?
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by Ekaros on Saturday March 11, 2023 @06:16AM (#35107317)
Important question is that what would happen if someone started asking pointed questions? About why do you transact in this and doesn't it go against laws. Would the stance actually hold...
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Re:Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend by Gare on Saturday March 11, 2023 @08:19AM (#35108055)
Yeah, how is this different than black market trading (which happened a lot in ex-communist countries including mine, but the currency traded was usually German mark).
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