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

131–140 of 168 posts

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

freeloop3 wrote: post #128
dragonwriter wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A brain wallet can be confiscated by rubber-hose cryptanalysis. It is more resistant, perhaps, to detection than cash on hand in foreign currency (though not necessarily particularly more than a foreign currency account where access information is memorized, depending on the threat profile of concern.)

Torture may be used to find out the user has bitcoin, but you can never be sure you got it all. If they give you access to n wallets, how do you know they don't have n+1? A foreign currency account is not as easy to setup as a brain wallet.

> Torture may be used to find out the user has bitcoin but you can never be sure you got it all.

That's also true of caches of foreign currency in cash (not to mention remote accounts.)

Of course, the difficulty of the subject proving full compliance is more of a problem for the subject than the torturer.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#132

Post by freeloop3 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #131
freeloop3 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torture may be used to find out the user has bitcoin, but you can never be sure you got it all. If they give you access to n wallets, how do you know they don't have n+1? A foreign currency account is not as easy to setup as a brain wallet.

> Torture may be used to find out the user has bitcoin but you can never be sure you got it all. That's also true of caches of foreign currency in cash (not to mention remote accounts.) Of course, the difficulty of the subject proving full compliance is more of a problem for the subject than the torturer.

A home can be searched and caches found. A foreign account is difficult to open.

It's not hard to see why bitcoin has its appeal, no?

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#134

Post by dragonwriter »

freeloop3 wrote: post #132
dragonwriter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Torture may be used to find out the user has bitcoin but you can never be sure you got it all. That's also true of caches of foreign currency in cash (not to mention remote accounts.) Of course, the difficulty of the subject proving full compliance is more of a problem for the subject than the torturer.

A home can be searched and caches found. A foreign account is difficult to open. It's not hard to see why bitcoin has its appeal, no?

> It's not hard to see why bitcoin has its appeal, no?

Since I gave the reason (added difficulty in detection, not confiscation) upthread, no, it's not hard to see why it has appeal compared to foreign currency for non-current savings (if you are spending in the domestic economy, which is observable by the authorities, the advantage of Bitcoin is mitigated) under certain threat models.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#136

Post by zman0225 »

nrp wrote: post #127
zman0225 wrote: post #120

very small correlation between situ in Zimbabwe and price of bitcoins. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets Either a pump from Korea or China.

Agreed that this seems fishy. Given that Zimbabwe no longer has a local currency, this seems to be USD->BTC on an exchange that happens to be in Zimbabwe. If you have the financial freedom to move your USD, it seems highly unlikely that you'd want to do so into BTC at a price much worse than at other exchanges. Can anyone familiar with Zimbabwe shed some light on what's happening?

Not just fishy -- fake news all the way. There's just not enough capital out of Zimbabwe to dictate a global market cap surge of 10-20 Billion (in the past 3 days)

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#137

Post by gatmne »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #113
valuearb wrote: post #80

This is a counter-example to the tired meme that crypto-currencies are only a benefit for criminals.

How do you know that the people buying BTC in Zimbabwe are not criminals?

I'd downvote you if I could.

How would you know that the people buying groceries in your store are not criminals?

It's how a currency is used not by whom. I'd say guarding your life savings against the reckless actions of your government is a legitimate use case.

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#138

Post by PKop »

gowld wrote: post #122
PKop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How can this be? BTC is deflating far faster than USD is inflating, considering USD purchasing power. So BTC can't be picking up USD's weakness, it must be a speculative bubble. Were Beanie Babies good money driving out bad? https://qz.com/114753/meet-the-family-who-lost-100000-when-t...

Because it's not at a steady state yet. At what price did you expect it to reach some semblance of stability? 0.10.. $10, $100... ?

Well, there are some broad metrics we can think about. If Bitcoin become a sort of reserve currency, or a digital gold, or a combination of both, shouldn't its total market value be a proportion of what currently occupies that title?

So, do the math. X% of Gold, or X% of reserve currency. Inject that value into 21 million Bitcoin (or the circulating supply at a given moment).

Here's a valuation prediction applying Bitcoin daily trade volume of 10% of foreign exchanges which are $5 Trillion[0]. This would price BTC at $100,000.

Only after it approaches somewhere close to these numbers, would you expect to see appreciation in the range of fiat inflation.

That's how it can be.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/bitcoin-price-forecast-hit-1...

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#139

Post by dingo_bat »

sp527 wrote: post #111
chesimov wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read about what has already happened in Zim, you'll understand why people would do that sort of thing with ease at even the thought of upheaval. I agree with you on the whales but man... back in the 2000s people were desperately trying to change fiat into anything at all that would hold value. Consumer goods like dvd players, you name it. Hyperinflation is no joke. On a side note in places like SA bitcoin is v…

If people in Zimbabwe were buying consumer technology as a store of value, that suggests a very poor financial sense to desperation ratio.

What else would you have done?

Re: Bitcoin surges in Zimbabwe after military seize power

#140

Post by mr_toad »

solaarphunk wrote: post #28
kown223 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you didn't dealt with this you can't understand, but simply put, 1 week of pay could be toilet paper next week(s), as it happened in Venezuela. 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 cu…

.... but bitcoin frequently jumps 25% a day on NON-domestic news.... how is it a better store of value?

That's the the opposite of inflation. Relative to bitcoin, prices of goods and services are decreasing.
Post reply on HN