Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

timeslive.co.za

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 168 posts

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#71

Post by paulmd »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #31

I don't want to start the usual bitcoin scaling debate, but aren't the fees extremely high now? Using [1] an average transaction costs about 10$, this is particularly bad in a poor country. I wonder if using a cryptocurrency is really the best option in this case. [1]: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

There is little reason to prefer Bitcoin to US Dollars or Euros for those looking to avoid the effects of inflation. There is nothing uniquely difficult about getting hard currencies on the black market in such places, it's simply that most people cannot afford it - and will not be able to afford Bitcoin either. It's a dumb suggestion from breathless fanboys who didn't really think about the actual problem before pushing their solution.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#72

Post by FRex »

yen223 wrote: post #56
ActsJuvenile wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Zimbabwean consumer doesn't influence USA; but USA consumer influences rest of the world. I can't think of any technology besides micro-finance that has trickled-up to USA.

Counterpoint: WhatsApp and WeChat are huge despite not having much of an American presence.

That's not a counterpoint but a confirmation of the first part of the original argument. You just listed two examples of such apps that fail to influence America despite being huge in other countries.

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.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#73

Post by drdaeman »

nikcub wrote: post #34
rnhmjoj wrote: post #31

I don't want to start the usual bitcoin scaling debate, but aren't the fees extremely high now? Using [1] an average transaction costs about 10$, this is particularly bad in a poor country. I wonder if using a cryptocurrency is really the best option in this case. [1]: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

The 137,000 satoshi price quoted isn't an average - it's the price to have your transaction almost guaranteed to be accepted in the next block It also shows 30 satoshi a byte gets you transaction accepted in 3-80 blocks, which based on experience is usually 3-12 blocks - and that works out to be 50c for the average transaction

I believe, dust collection is prohibitively costly. And if one's using Bitcoin any actively, they'll end up generating a lot of dust, I think.

At the current BTC/USD rates, I have a few dollars worth of dust. However, it's spread over 17 inputs, so it's basically unspendable. It would require ~3.1KB transaction so even at 30sat/byte the fees would be, like, 0.00093 BTC ($6.5 at $7K/BTC).

For poorer countries even $2-5 could be a well significant amount. One can probably have a meal for that money.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#74

Post by zanny »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #10
dpflan wrote: post #5

I'm intrigued by the idea that cryptocurrencies can exist and may help alleviate economics crises, but in a dark plot twist can't governments essentially own the majority of computing power, start their own cryptocurrency, and outlaw all others? What does the world look like when a decentralized concept like this is appropriated and brute forced into a more-or-less centralized concept? (Or perhaps I'm way off track..…

>start their own cryptocurrency, and outlaw all others? This would be a waste of resources. If you're not going to be decentralized, it's way less complex to have a mysql DB of everyones bank accounts somewhere, and much easier to hide corruption.

This right here is what is so frustrating about the general engagement with blockchains in the last half decade. On one hand, I am knowledgeable about the subject domain and witnessed businesses offering some ludicrous compensation for working on blockchains for them, but to be informed is to know how misguided all these people are about why blockchains are useful, and talking to peers who did get involved in some of these projects (especially circa 2013 ones) companies spent a lot on a fad and just as quickly ended the experiment because blockchains are not magic money machines.

They are only beneficial to establish a trustless data store. That is the only function they serve. If you don't need trustless consensus, you don't need or want a blockchain. If you are a state actor or some major corporation, you trust yourself already, and you don't need trustless data stores, and at corporate scale any interaction with other entities that might validly use trustless data (like money tracked between banks) has the entities involved capable of influencing force of law to maintain systemic trust.

That is why Zimbabwe citizens value it, and why a Fortune 500 or European state power doesn't need one.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#75

Post by walshemj »

lend000 wrote: post #4

Is this a legitimate news source? I have a difficult time believing this part: > The events unfolded as Zimbabwe is in deep crisis. The economy has halved in size since 2000, an estimated 95% of the workforce is jobless and as many as 3 million Zimbabweans have gone into exile. 95% unemployment?

One of my coworkers in London is from Zimbabwe and she was telling us some of the problems her family had trying to run a farm.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#76

Post by PKop »

ActsJuvenile wrote: post #36
pwaai wrote: post #20

I feel like there are whales that simply manipulate the price based on news. There's little evidence to suggest bitcoin has any usage in zimbabwe in practical day to day usage. Therelies the problem with bitcoin, why would someone in zimbabwe pay 1 week of their salary to move 3 weeks of pay and still not be sure if the money will still be there tomorrow?

Yeah I hate these "Bitcoin is happening in (Insert African/Latin Country here)" type of remarks. 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.

Bitcoin will conquer weaker currencies first. How could it happen any other way?

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/

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#77

Post by freeloop3 »

eighthnate wrote: post #67
lend000 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is too big for a few "whales" to have a sizable effect on major price trends -- even if significant groups of them were somehow coordinated. This explanation is commonly used in general cryptocurrency forums and even some trading forums, but it really comes down to not understanding how markets work and trying to assign some meaning (not so different from religion). Whales are not gods.

> Bitcoin is too big for a few "whales" to have a sizable effect on major price trends 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.

The volume today was over $4 billion. Let's say you'd need 5% of that to move the market enough for people to take notice. (Given the large volatility, this actually seems conservative) Are you suggesting that there are people who are regularly buying and selling more than $200 million worth of cryptocurrency a day?

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#78

Post by freeloop3 »

paulmd wrote: post #71
rnhmjoj wrote: post #31

I don't want to start the usual bitcoin scaling debate, but aren't the fees extremely high now? Using [1] an average transaction costs about 10$, this is particularly bad in a poor country. I wonder if using a cryptocurrency is really the best option in this case. [1]: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

There is little reason to prefer Bitcoin to US Dollars or Euros for those looking to avoid the effects of inflation. There is nothing uniquely difficult about getting hard currencies on the black market in such places, it's simply that most people cannot afford it - and will not be able to afford Bitcoin either. It's a dumb suggestion from breathless fanboys who didn't really think about the actual problem before pus…

You can't confiscate a brain wallet

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#79

Post by PKop »

gowld wrote: post #37
rnhmjoj wrote: post #31

I don't want to start the usual bitcoin scaling debate, but aren't the fees extremely high now? Using [1] an average transaction costs about 10$, this is particularly bad in a poor country. I wonder if using a cryptocurrency is really the best option in this case. [1]: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

Wow, so that's maybe OK for moving in/out of a >$1000 position, but horrid for spending as a currency.

That's why you don't spend it. You save it.

See Their's Law, good money drives out bad.[0] People will hodl Bitcoin and spend fiat, driving up the price of BTC in terms of fiat until it absorbs some significant portion of global currency value. There are only 21 M coins; a deflationary crypto currency isn't for buying coffee or micro-payments.

It is displaying similar qualities to Gold in countries where governments have debased the currency.

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

Post reply on HN