Sleeping beauty Bitcoin wallets wake up after 14 years to the tune of $2B

I love how people bring up deflationary spiral as a "peril" while the prerequisite for it is the universal and smashing success of Bitcoin.

The only "problem" Bitcoin poses for economies is for governments to fine-tune their local economies via currency production and related controls. In that sense, we should watch how events unfold in Turkey.

* among major "regular" economies, Turkey has the highest % of people holding crypto (≈20%). Second only to special zones UAE and Singapore (31%, 24%).

* Turkish lira is steadily inflated over the last 30-40 years, well over 10% and recently over 50%.

* Turkey does not have mandate for pricing goods in local currency: you can pay in dollars or euros, along the local lira.

* When you enter Istanbul airport, Every. Single. Gate. is marked with BTCTurk ad, inside and outside - the major crypto exchange in the country.

* Istanbul city market is full of traders who use USDT on Tron.

The experiment of social game "Bitcoin" boils down to this: will the people self-organize the functioning economy with monetary freedom, while the gov loses its grip on it; or will the economy collapse without government's regulation and protective management?

> and smashing success of Bitcoin.

It's a success today, we haven't gotten to when they stop issuing any more, and mining is funded by transaction fees. I suspect there are going to be some problems then.

> Turkish lira is steadily inflated over the last 30-40 years, well over 10% and recently over 50%.

Because the authoritarian government took over the previously independent central bank and lowered interest rates. Higher inflation was predicted by mainstream economists, and they were right.

* https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/20/turkeys-erdogan-sac...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_interventions_under_E...

Thank God that would never happen in the US.

Like what? As far as I can tell, it will solidify its store of value.

> Like what? As far as I can tell, it will solidify its store of value.

Which is the bug:

> No currency should be able to buy the same basket of goods over very long timespans through hoarding. If you want to retain the purchasing power of your money, it should participate in society via investment.

* https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/159265180975079833...

That’s a “hot take” that people take as an axiom. What if it isn’t? What is the precise definition of “participating in society”? What level of earning and spending is considered morally good and who’s to decide that? (Meta questions arise when discussing conflicts of interest of the deciders.)

This is just a convenient way to access stable western currency. Having been to Russia and Argentina during their worst inflation years before crypto, they solved their issues by asking for US paper dollars. Crypto is just saving them currency exchange fees.

And there's no way Turkiye is behind the value of BTC. It's still driven by speculators.