Bitcoin Forum

Have a look at the following graphic:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIQQyQqXYAEt4W0.jpg

The image comes from the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/CryptoWelson/status/1190094660578037761/photo/1


I wonder whether the surge in the bitcoin price that started in March/April is correlated with the Hong Kong riots which started on 31st March 2019 and are still ongoing.

I think that a lot of these investors and people that are suddenly entering the Bitcoin scene see it as the only safe haven away from their own country and it's currency.

For example, with Venezuela it has been used as a replacement for their peso currency for years now, their own currency has been unstable since forever and I think it might become a permanent situation soon. Same with Argentina except they are fighting it and don't want Bitcoin to replace their currency. Hong Kong is having issues with China, so that explains it easily.

I am so sure all of these countries are helping Bitcoin in one way or another. Like converging factors, these all pushed Bitcoin to what it is today having broken the so-called bearish mood. Amazing to see Venezuela really leading the way as more and more people in that country look at Bitcoin as a way to tide them over the difficulties under an economy suffering from hyperinflation and the lack of basic goods. People in Venezuela have a hard time buying many products within their country and with the dollar restriction, they are using Bitcoin as the currency to reach to merchants just outside their territory. Definitely, the resulting economic slowdown due to the continuing protests on the streets in Hong Kong contributed to the rise of Bitcoin in this location. Since there is still no definite agreement on both sides (protesters and government)  protests can erupt anytime, and this can lead to more demand for Bitcoin and the consequent more-than-normal rise in its price.

This is no surprise at all since this scenario is all part of an ever growing Bitcoin and crypto adoption worldwide that is taking its natural course and I assume  we would expect an even more vibrant Bitcoin and crypto industry in the coming years to come. :)

I think the surge is caused by the continuous publicity and adoption of these countries to Bitcoin. Once they had learned its background and its potential to be an alternative asset rather than their local banks to store funds, they might have migrated and the spread of words after that could have caused the surge. Having said that they're economically volatile/unstable means that the people of these countries are going skeptical about their economy's future and having found this safe haven must have been a huge factor for them.

There's no surprise, these people are scared to lose their money in their countries in a lot of ways like inflation, crisis, some random rules of governments etc
So a safe place to put money without anybody know is BTC, and this a good method to use
I hope I never need to use BTC in this way, but if necessary I would do it with BTC

This is one of the role Bitcoin was created to play and most of these hot spot are great market and if Bitcoin can meet their need in this period of difficulties, when the good times come they are more likely to stick with it. The good thing for holders in the countries is that it goes for premium for those who are willing to sell their BTC

It is normal for people to look for investing into appreciating or stable assets when their national currencies are economies are swinging like a bat on a baseball field. I'm happy to see that they're putting their moeny into Bitcoin and the volume is raising. That's another sign that Bitcoin could be the next worldwide store-of-value asset and a possible global mainstrem currency taking into account that it has much more superior properties and utility than gold does.

I would not be surprised if people were getting into Bitcoin so that they can buy USDT in those countries. Especially Hong Kong in this case. At least USDT doesn't really lose its value in comparison to Hong Kong Dollars. Bitcoin, however, may.

Could be a probable entry for the upcoming halving this 2020? A lot of countries have understood the possibilities of BTC, and they have for sure researched about past jumps and charts of BTC price. They should most likely be aware of what a halving could do to the economy of BTC and they should probably be preparing for it. These are just my speculations though. It is good news though since a lot of people have now been pulled in by the allure of BTC and hopefully, these people could contribute to its development.

The Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar - so the people of Hong Kong have no use for tether.

Yes this is something which is happening from long time and moreover there are some more good news on the way because China might loosen it's restrictions on bitcoin and we are getting predictions that bitcoin will prosper further in Asian countries due to Japanese influence. 

This actually is obvious. It's not because these people have suddenly started loving Bitcoin. It's because of the need of the hour. Fiat is purely based on trust in central government while the recent incidents that have happened in these countries have made people realize that they cannot trust the government anymore and neither they can trust the currency issued by this government which is why they have decided to shift on bitcoin. But once the economic situation would settle they would once again be moving onto Fiat.

Probably economic situation drives Bitcoin demand in those countries. We don’t wish more countries will suffer economic crisis like that but ironically its another factor that will contribute Bitcoin’s price high.

More economic issues/insane inflation rates/unstable economics/government's fighting will mean people will take their hard-earned cash away from the banks and dump it into another investment option.

Previously, 10 or 20 years ago this would be in another nation's currency, or even precious metals like gold or silver. Nowadays, it's a lot easier and possibly safer to just throw your money into bitcoin and keep it there for a bit, even if prices are unstable unfortunately.

Just like in Venezuela since they're having an economic crisis, probably they are looking for an alternative way since their main currency isn't stable nor in a good condition. They might trying bitcoin if it'll work for them just to survive because of the crisis.

Since they cannot rely on their fiat already, another possible way they can do is to go to the traditional one and use gold, or buy foreign currency, or just adopt bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It's actually an obvious move.

I am glad that people are understanding the importance of decentralized currency.
This trend is gaining pace lately. Any country with political or economical unrest is shifting towards crypto as a safe haven. The thing here to note is that when people lose hope from their national currency, they are considering crypto as a viable alternative. Though the volume isn't that high for obvious reasons. But the shift is expected to gain pace in coming years.

In my opinion, gold is not a good idea
An average person don't know to to buy and sell gold, the government will know if you are buying gold and it's very dangerous to keep gold at you house and if youleave in your bank, the government can take, we are talking about country in a moment of crysis

With BTC you can buy online, have your private key and it's more secure, if the person needs to leave the country, it can be recovered in another country without any problem

I agree with your opinion economic crisis there is a threat to citizens so that the transfer of funds into crypto and others ,right steps to invest in crypto and the results for the long term will feel more profitable than having to be developed into gold or other property

It is a logical way to do in a crisis. You have to store your wealth that cannot be affected by the melting economy of your country. And there are very few options. One is real estate but that would require large amounts and tedious to process. Another is gold, but just like what above me said, it is hard to secure. The most convenient is bitcoin and other cyptocurrencies. Easy to acquire, does not require large amount and can be secured easily.

But this is just three countries. How about other countries that are volatile?

It is not really about the government tracking your financial whereabouts or rather your wealth but rather it is more about the practicability. It is not practical and easy to get yourself a gold compared to Bitcoin which you can easily acquire in a lot of way and less hassle. On top of that, if we talk about a matter of security then there is no argument needed as you already pointed it out. In the moment of crisis, you should always think about a simpler and as effective as any alternatives it should be.

Really?  I could swear that most Venezuelans have been using stable currencies like the USD rather than bitcoin, but I could be wrong.  That amount of LBC exchanges in Venezuela is incredible for one year--I had no idea it was that high, especially given that the other two countries pale in comparison.

Let's hope for their sakes that bitcoin at least holds its value, because if it were to crash those people would be even more screwed.  It's far from a safe-haven asset, what with all the volatility it's notorious for.  They probably would be better off holding USD instead, at least for purchases, though I'm happy that these countries have such an interest in bitcoin.  I think it's great, actually.

A lot of people in Venezuela might really have genuine interest in Bitcoin but I am almost sure that the figures and the interest are somehow bloated to an exaggerated extent by the news. They are somehow thickly sugar coated to make it appear as if Bitcoin is serving as the silver bullet or a sort of a blanket solution to their problems there. I have to agree that Bitcoin is going to be a difficult solution to a people who have experienced the worst turbulence in a fiat's value. They are most probably tired of an unstable currency. Bitcoin is such.

its not just the countries experiencing crisis are buying BTC. venezuelans sees BTC or the real cryptocurrencies to be more of a solution to save their wealth while they are in the unstable solution. some of them may even be buying USDT just to have that money being safe but while they are at it, might as well just invest to BTC while the price is low and that they can gain whenever price rockets.

Well, people see this as a way out and that is kinda the point of bitcoin anyway. When did bitcoin was first created?

After the 2008 crisis, why was it created? Because, satoshi realized 2008 was a big crisis that was saved by the government to protect the rich and screw the poor so satoshi wanted to make a currency that couldn't be toy for the rich and could help the poor as well.

Yes, right now there are tons of whales who play with bitcoin like it is a toy but at the end of the day poor people could hold it as long as they need and if rich want to keep making money from it they would eventually make some poor people rich as well. That is just the way bitcoin is, it helps the poorer people more in the sense that small gets bigger, big just gets bigger as well.

Unfortunate they are to totally accept bitcoin specially Venezuela 'cause they have no option to fight their economic recession. In crypto currency side is that, it is overwhelming to know that the demand for Bitcoin would go higher since there were a countless of people are now using Bitcoin but on their ends is that they are pitiful because their currency value are now close to zero. And what if there were no crypto at all? They might be drowning to a lot of debt though.

For example, Ukraine Parliament is planing to introduce for consideration a bill of the legalization of operations with cryptocurrency. Many deputies in their declarations indicated the  crypto assets. During the global crises, many people purchased real estate. But local wars in some countries showed the inefficiency of such preservation the assets. Now the cryptocurrency allows the citizens of poor countries with a destroyed economy to survive today.

It might be a scenario over the spike. But can not be in the undeniable investors and new people prefer Bitcoin because it is safer than the currency in their country.
Their currencies are not as stable as they should and think people are more confident in the cryptocurrency and move on, so the volume that happens is enormous.

If the economy of a country is volatile where there's an option that equally volatile aswell which is cryptos It's totally understandable that the citizens are going to all in to cryptos anyway, bitcoin is accepted worldwide meanwhile owning property or cash there could gone anytimes. Although the surges I'm however pretty sure that most of the people would prefer USD anyway because it's stable.

That maybe the case but however the volatility is too risky if you are living in a country where the economy is relatively weak, every cents matter.

It is really impossible to find out the real reason for the price rise and the price started rising during the Hong Kong riots and it can be a mere coincidence as every time when ever there is a rise or fall in the price of bitcoin people like to link that to the events globally even if it has not value what so ever. The main reason people are looking to invest in bitcoin is because of the economic uncertainty in some countries where the economy is struggling because of inflation caused by bad policies and they are looking for a viable currency that cannot be controlled by the government.

It's not hard to secure at all, whatever that means. The most common form of Gold is jewelry. It's very easy to obtain and exchange for fiat currency when you want to sell it. It's also a convenient way to escape the financial system of your country without raising any suspicion of capital flight, because buying jewelry is a common practice pretty much in every country.

In the end, nothing goes above dollar bills in countries amidst financial chaos. Bitcoin is a great option if you want to secure a part of your wealth, but too much exposure isn't something I would recommend because you want stability, not volatility. The benefit of the dollar is that it is stable and you can spend it pretty easily because there is plenty of demand from local folks and businesses to accept it.

Bitcoin has never really been stress tested in such scenario, hence the reason for me to not follow the herd and say it will help a lot of people. I don't think it will at this stage.

Technically this events leads to people in conclusion that the main reason for the cryptocurrency or bitcoin price increase is the riot and the news concerning hong kong, not considering the fact that the market adoption of cryptocurrency in a holistic view is getting higher and higher over time. With regards to the economy struggling, would it be better to consider using XRP or other crypto with low transaction fees instead of bitcoin? Take note, economy is struggling, people are so, why don't we maximize our cryptocurrencies capabilities to solve such issues.

True - but bitcoin is attractive in places here dollar bills are scarce. And dollars are scare in many developing countries. To get hold them, they need to sell goods in return for dollars and that's not easy given the global competition. So changing your local currency into bitcoin is easier. You can then change the bitcoin into dollars at a later date. 

yes I agree with you when a crisis occurs part of the stock market will be affected and this makes some investors will secure their assets to a safer place. and some of the investors chose bitcoin as an alternative investment. and what causes bitcoin demand to increase in Venezuela is because there is hyperinflation, which causes the fiat currency to fall. so they looked for alternative payment methods and they chose bitcoin. bitcoin can be a solution when a country is experiencing an economic crisis.

Well, that is not surprising. People from those countries ain't just buying Bitcoin as an alternative to their Fiat, they are buying in the hope of making profits in the future. As Bitcoin has more advantages over other alternatives, they go for it.

bitcoin is not new so its normal that its popularity increase and people  start to check it but there are those people that buy btc not because they want to make profit in the form of investment but because they want to use it as a curency like for example on those country that has a financial crisis  . they look for alternatives and they choose cryptos such as btc but bitcoin is not the only coin that is available on the crypto market , there are those altcoins that also have thier own advantages  .

The charts make it look like there is a lot happening, but when you for example calculate the volumes in Venezuela back to the USD, it's no longer impressive.... actually, volumes have gone down in USD not up.

You can't tell me that $3-$5 million in volume on a weekly basis is anything to pay attention to.... it's peanuts in the grand scheme of things, so unless they grow their volumes seriously, there is not much point focusing on them.

If you look at the grand scheme of things then a few millions is not a huge volume of trade and it is just peanuts but if you consider the financial crisis situation in a country you should understand that people are willing to trust the bitcoin market and trading is going on despite the financial issues they are facing where people are not able to get jobs or basic living facilities, so these amounts are huge considering their real state of their economy.

I don't know whether to be happy with this sudden adoption of bitcoin in other countries or not because they're experiencing a crisis... But one thing for sure is that bitcoin is helping them to survive their everyday living which their local currency cannot support. The only concern here is the volatility of bitcoin as well. Their currency is already not stable yet they're investing on something volatile as well. The con is when the price is low, it'll be hard for them as well

At least Bitcoin is volatile in 2 ways, up and down  :P Most of these countries have a very high inflation national currency so holding that doesn't make any sense. They flee to bitcoin because it is easy to buy, transact and use even though it is still volatile. A currency that can go up or down is more preferable than a currency that can only go down, so it makes sense that people are buying bitcoin there. I'm glad cryptocurrency can finally be used for some real life purpose and can actually help people be safe from their governments.

Basically there will be no order in the price of products and goods that they need to buy. As a result, there might be an economic crisis since one country needs to be organize in order for their economy to be stable. They should first utilize stable currency and not prioritize bitcoin for this purpose as the volatility will make them suffer furthermore.

Because of the bad governmental policies and the state of their economy also we should understand that soon enough it is actually going to be a global recession and at that time it won't be only countries like them using Bitcoins but the whole world will be there and Fiat is getting weaker and weaker and the jobs are declining and the number of them runs in millions in only one country !
These are all the signs of upcoming recession.!

many benefits and expectations offered in investing in cryptocurrency and that makes a lot of people who start investing but if you know the risks that will be obtained certainly if we do not understand the losses we will get in investing and cryptocurrency I am sure will be needed along with the changing times and technology

We had a really long period of global peace in the last 60 years. There were conflicts like the one in former Yugoslavia, but overall these wars were small if we compare them to what was happening in the 19th and early 20th century. IMO this is the main reason for the recession. War fuels the economy and we had no war for a long time. Some governments are making sure they participate in an armed conflict all the time, like the USA. They went from fighting in Vietnam to the Gulf War, then to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria... America has to constantly be at war with someone to stop itself from falling into a crysis, similar to the Great Depression.

Dont you guys think its kinda funny though for people in economically volatile countries to try to find stability using such a volatile currency like BTC?...At least if they convert it to tether or something.

Whats cooler to me is the fact that its a world currency and it can benefit people in countries where the value of their money is really low compared to the USD or EUR. People in less developed countries can work online for higher wages paid in crypto.

Can't blame them for trying to find ways to retain their money's value since their currency is either quickly becoming worthless or there is the danger that their bank accounts can get locked (like what HKers fear). Of course there is still the issue that bitcoin prices swing somewhat wildly when valued in fiat but when it comes to portability, it's a very good option.

Should they need to flee their country they can just leave and open their wallet elsewhere. This would be unlike carrying their currency or dollars. For those staying though, I still think USD is still a good enough option. Countries that have their currency collapsed usually just switch to USD.

No. That's not the point of it. The reason why most of their economies are so volatile and unstable is mostly due to the poor governments, and the centralized systems they have.

They go to bitcoin because it isn't managed by a government, and while tether is controlled by the company behind it who organizes it, bitcoin is uncontrollable, and even if the prices are fairly volatile, it's better then the other stable coins and how they operate.

Have you ever thought that the soaring value of cryptocurrency exchanges in countries experiencing military conflict was caused by TINA (There is no alternative). Let's discuss one by one

- Venezuela
Venezuela is a country that is subject to a total embargo by the United States. The world banking system is controlled by the United States. The use of bitcoin as a payment tool there appears to facilitate the transaction of payment of crude oil to suppliers in Venezuela. There is no alternative to receiving money from outside the except using blockchain and also as an alternative to get assistance from other countries without America knowing.

- Argentina
Argentina is a country experiencing economic crisis due to inflation so that to maintain the fall in the value of its currency limits the purchase of USD and gold, but there are no restrictions on the purchase of bitcoin. this policy makes the demand for bitcoin and other cryptocurrency surges in Argentina and even the high demand makes bitcoin prices higher in Argentina than in other countries. There is no alternative to investing and keeping their value of money except bitcoin).

-Hongkong
Demonstrations and chaos in Hong Kong against China caused a sluggish stock and property market because the majority of Hong Kong's economy was supported by the tourism sector and business hubs in Asia (harbor hubs and also trading company centers gathered besides Singapore). with the social chaos and riots causing investor pessimism in Hong Kong so they are looking for alternatives on how to make investments.

For now, bitcoin is still believed to be relatively safe assets when there are many problems.

the issue of the Hong Kong people began to move their cash funds to crypto, in my opinion, was precisely made an excuse for economically volatile countries surges. they know that moving their cash into crypto forms will be safer than in cash, their worries and political conditions encourage them to save in anonymous crypto forms.

Your tittle is true and only logical.

But it is not actually correct to say that honk gong has as volatile economy as countries with currencies which are collapsed due the hyperinflation.
You showed us that there was only 17 million exchnages there, this is completely tiny amount and can not be correlated to price action of BTC.

Could be said so. A lot of countries have been trying to let their people buy BTC so that they could possibly hoard coins for the upcoming halving. A lot of people are placing their eyes on BTC right now so I expect a huge amount of analysis and descriptions of the current state of BTC now and in the next, lets say, year I guess.

Its actually not surprising what the data is saying because in the real sense that is what is happening. I remember when some times last where the country I am resident was facing an isolated economic recession. It was at the time the fiat value to bitcoin was on the high side and everyone involved in crypto to have an increased in value of their holdings but in the real sense it even out eventually because when you change high, you automatically buy things in the local market high which makes one not better off economically as you will still maintain the same economic position when the economy was better but better than those who are into fiat totally as they are poorer than they were.

No government will want their citizens to hoard their wealth in a virtual currency that can be traded world wide but they cannot stop anyone from doing so but people are investing in bitcoin because they see an opportunity to hold their funds without any government policies and manipulations and they are confident in gaining a profit after the halving.

Tether may be worthless if the investigations into it prove they have no reserves.

Bitcoin is way more valuable because you can exchange it for real dollars, rather than the fake dollar that is Tether.

The controversy surrounding Tether (USDT) has not died down until now. Personally though, I have some doubts that the full 100 percent supply of Tether (USDT) is supported by reserves. Their supply is now reaching 4 billion plus USDT. That is an extremely big amount of money that Tether can support. 

Bitcoin is indeed volatile and it might even be dangerous to the present condition of the people in these countries. But if Bitcoin will not plunge in value, there is nothing to worry.

If the government fails to manage a country's economic, the fiat currency will be affected by hyperinflation, thus the value continues decreasing.
That's why bitcoin as an alternative means of payment becomes a better option instead of using invaluable fiat currency,
That graph is an example of how people switch over to bitcoin in some countries which in political and economic instability.

In my mind too, I think bitcoin is going to grow more because countries that have devalued currencies will see it as an investment area to hide the few currency they have in expectation of some profit that will accrue to it.

all three countries experienced a severe economic crisis that made their national currencies experience a falling and worthless hyperinflation. so they looked for other alternatives for payment tools. and they found bitcoin as a solution. although the value of bitcoin is also volatile but I think it's still better than their fiat money which continues to decline. I read an article that bitcoin residents of Venezuela use bitcoin to survive.
and I think this is indeed the purpose of satoshi to make bitcoin usable when there is a monetary crisis.

The said countries like Venezuela suffered hyperinflation during 2016 that it reached 274% in 2016, got higher during 2017 and reached 863%, 130,060% in 2018 and got worse when 2019 entered that the rate raised up to 282,973 then had the rate at 4,679% during September this year, the country's crisis was caused by their International monetary fund where they wanted to print more private money, the inflation was just so catastrophic especially its impact to busineses that made them enter cryptocurrency that bacame their safe haven and that will save them from their own currency's crisis.

I don't think it will do much longer term speaking, because the sentiment within the crypto space is already that Tether has no actual reserves to back every single token that they have issued.... people still use it.

The thing with Tether is that people use it to move fiat from one exchange to another to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities, and hedge declines in the price, which it does the best of any stablecoin that's currently in existence.

This is a good news and like a scenery to me seeing countries that are slowly adopting bitcoin as a real currency, though most of the countries are not still into cryptocurrency, but this is a big hope that someday in the future, all of the Governments will open their hearts and eyes to accept that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is not a threat, but a blessing in disguise.

The amount of money isn't that big for a country that needs more of it though.


Hopefully that could happen. The more countries applied blockchain on their daily systems the easier to see cryptocurrencies are also going to be adopted in different industries, right now cryptocurrencies are growing in numbers for each uses.

Bitcoin may just be use for now by the people in the above countries to store the money they have in times uncertainty like the political instability.

Cryptocurrencies are being accepted by the people, not by the countries. And when countries start using blockchain, they will create their own chain, be sure in that!
The situation we have today is just the beginning. Some countries discuss about blockchain in general, others are adopting some coin, so some countries are open to this idea, some or not, but in one moment all countries in the world will discuss about it and we will see many changes on a global level. This is just the top of the iceberg, and believe me that nobody can predict what will happen.

That's interesting, I was not aware of that.  And is the economy and/or currency of Hong Kong volatile?  If their dollar is pegged to usd I would imagine that at least their money isn't.

But I was certainly aware of Venezuela and Argentina having an extremely hard time as of late.  I remember reading something about venezuelans adopting Dash for some reason, but I have difficulty believing that any of them are really using crypto instead of a currency from a neighboring country that's more stable than the bolivar.  They might have a use for a stable coin but I don't think they're going to be running out to buy dash or even bitcoin, tho I hope they do.

I will have to take a look at how many crypto atm's there are in these countries.  That should be a general measure of how available bitcoin is and perhaps how popular as well.

Government too are getting wiser now, they are actually not stopping anyone form the use of cryptocurrency for trading and to make money, infact that is what they like now and we can see how they are beginning to introduce tax too into the trading system, so instead of cutting off cryptocurrency, they are seriously encouraging it right now, so that they can be able to get more money through taxing, and this is because they are able to gain access to centralized exchanges that we have.

It is still good though, because if government do not have any access to taxing people, I am sure that by now, the heat of trying to ban it would have been much more than this, but since they have access to taxing the traders which will help the economy, they will promote it more now.

The problem of inflation and hyperinflation is highly linked with the printing of local currency. Whenever the local money is printed in huge amounts, it decreases its worth and increases the rates of other stuff. This usually is done by the corrupted governments and such institutes can be wiped out by introducing blockchain in the region. Crypto coins have saved common people from such crisis.

This is the side of bitcoin which people usually ignore especially by those who fear bitcoin because of its volatile nature. The world needs to understand that volatility is a phenomenon not only limited to crypto currencies but also exhibited by fiats. Even if your state is not suffering from economic crisis still bitcoin and other successful crypto projects could be used to make economy stronger.

Hmhm. I don't think you could classify this as a "crypto revolutuon", it's mostly just a bunch of rich people that already have assets to protect are looking towards the crypto side of things in case their entire finance sector collapses.

I'm going to guess and think that a lot of people in those countries have already lost a lot of their funds due to the situation of their government/war.

How the media deals with these issues is going to be important.

yeah they are just using bitcoin temporarily once the economic problems settle down they will return to use the cash anyway. It is not like bitcoin is being adopted there they are just trying to find a way of saving all their money instead of betting on their volatile economy which could make them poor anytime.
It is like when riot happens in Hong Kong the news about people converting their wealth to bitcoin surfaces across the media.

I’m not surprised with the current adoption in Hongkong and since the tension there is increasing its really good for them to save the value of their money and put it on bitcoin. Countries that are experiencing a big down on their economies are tend more to adopt bitcoin, this will be the safe place for them and its good for the cryptomarket.

This is why people are in favor of bitcoin since they are not centralized or in simple words, government can somehow monitor it but they cannot control its generation or production. One of the major reasons why we have expensiveness of bitcoin is its limited supply and the demand is high. These sick governments who are destroying economy of the state shall also follow rules of bitcoin market.

We have seen it that those people who looking to store the value through bitcoin to avoid their money value getting worse it's ended up disappointing as the price of bitcoin falls down suddenly and instead protect you from an inflation it's sometimes makes your money value decreased.

So it's not always have a good fairytale story that whenever certain country under crazy inflation... and then bitcoin or any cryptocurrency become their safe haven. That's wrong thought.

Crypto is too risky of a bet indeed. It could work out extremely well, but then you need the luck to have invested in or right before a longer term bull market where prices go up.

If you bought crypto in 2018 thinking it would help you counter the inflation rate of your country, you would have lost far more purchasing, plus you actually lost in units too because cashing out at a loss means you get less units back.

People in these situations aren't speculators, they need stability which can be found in the USD, which generally is the preferred store of value tool even though people here see it differently.

If you say the graph then this is the effect of the demand at the place where the compilation of requests is increasing then the price of bitcoin will also go up and vice versa then bitcoin should indeed be used for many people and many platforms should start working with the blockchain system so that it will grow bitcoin requests in a place of transition.

It can definitely be. Maybe the impact was just that huge enough that it has still a tail effect upto this. Are Hongkong still in enmity between China? Maybe it has to do with that. In addition there are countries in which you showed has of course a responsibility of bitcoin surge till now, in addition to that huge companies take a part of the action as well. I do think that 2019 will be all good for crypto marker, don't ya think guys?

Crypto currencies are not risky at all as long as the investor hold good knowledge of his coin and choose the right coin. If a person chooses bitcoin then obviously, all the risk disappears. He should try to buy the coin during dip like the present one and then sell it when the prices get high. Loss only occurs when people start panicking out and lose trust in their holdings. Otherwise, the road is a smooth one.

many entities and organisations trying to invest on blockchain based security tokens as well as trying to convert the Mazar blockchain secured firewalled business.
volatility and circulation of Bitcoin will decide the price in the market evaluation of every cryptocurrency. So every country should have some investors under the base of crypto to secure them.

Depends if what cryptos are you investing to . The risk is not the same on every cryptos . Btc has the highest risk but has the highest reward also  .  No matter how knowledgeable you are , you are not perfect to predict the price even if you pick the less riskeir coins , so the chance of loosing is still present

It's not   .  People can still loose with or without panicking because there are other reasons that they do like selling because they need the cash or they loose the value of their asset because it fell down .

Oh, before now I came across a post that says there have been a lot of people buying bitcoin in Argentina, and I thought that was not true, and now here's this post to verify that he was saying the truth. Well, that's good to see that a lot of people are now buying bitcoin and especially people in Venezuela; I hope that bitcoin is going to help a lot of them escape the poverty they are facing in that country.

But, I'm wondering how exactly they are going to survive through bitcoin if not through the price increase. And moreover, it is not every one of them that could afford to buy bitcoins. Just like where I live, it's not everyone that has the money. Some people are struggling to survive with the little money they have, and putting that away to bitcoin in the name of making money, they will just end up starving. Most people use the little money they get for buying food.

And this is very telling, even if governments do not want to recognize bitcoin as a currency what they fear the most is that people do because once this process begins to take place they have no way to stop it.

It also makes sense, we see that in countries where the currency and the economy is still strong there is not a need for those people to adopt bitcoin and they keep using their fiat, but once fiat begins to have problems people have no problem trying to find and use other alternatives.

It is true that the demand for Bitcoin in many of these countries are showing a small uptick. But if you compare the volumes from these countries to the global volumes, then you will find that these are still minuscule numbers. Venezuelans and Argentines are using the US Dollar and gold as the store of value. Bitcoin is much lower in priority.

That's the wrong perception that most newcomers think about how bitcoin could help you out of the crisis.

You might find it as a safe haven if you do it in the short term only , that's why the demand surges ... it won't last forever. you need to find other alternatives as soon as possible other than bitcoin... you could choose stable coins but still it's not recommended at all due its controversies hasn't been answered yet.
A big bet of course for those who choose bitcoin as their part of escape plan . Overall you are stepping in to a bigger risk once you do this especially when it's involved a huge amount of money.

This is obvious because so many people around the world think that bitcoin is capable of very good growth over the years. they were manipulated by that concept from the beginning.
In my opinion, buying a lot of bitcoins is really a mistake when you are too confident in the future of bitcoin. It is risky because only manipulative organizations are holding the most bitcoins.
And if one day the sharks were constantly selling off, what would happen to those who believed in bitcoin? What will their country be like?
wow, i cant imagine it.

The numbers are minuscule because the Argentinian peso has already devalued. Basically you could get a lot more bitcoin if you moved to purchase it BEFORE the crisis hit than after. Same goes for Venezuela - if you try to buy after the crisis you struggle - 1 Venezuelan peso only equals 180 satoshi, so you would need to do a lot of work just to get a few satoshi.

This is always the trouble - people move to buy bitcoin too late, after a crisis has hit, instead of pre-planning and acting before.

There is increasing demand particularly from those economically volatile countries. This is all because of the devaluation every citizen of the country experience. Now everyone want their hard earnings to be secured, and investing on bitcoin this can be achieved. Some fear of the volatility with bitcoin, one who understands better about its volatility invest and have patience to get the best out of it. With bitcoin as the demand increases the value too rises. With fiat to the demand the currencies were simply printed causing inflation. Such scenario is happening in most countries.

In countries where the government and economy are unstable and in situations with high inflation, cryptocurrency may be a good alternative. It can provide a safe haven for your money. It also allows access to the funds from many places around the world.

This is only the statistics for Localbitcoins.com, other Exchanges that also move a lot of volume in operations are not taken into account, however it is necessary to emphasize that Venezuela continues to have increasing numbers in terms of volumes, since the adoption is very large every day, In fact, if all Venezuelans knew about technology, they would return to their country to work on it, whether in trading or otherwise to acquire Bitcoin.

The high volumes of Hong Kong is a normal consequence that is caused by the Chinese government itself, they know very well that they had until recently a lot of prohibitions regarding Bitcoin and Crypto, now that CHINA is in the "Love" phase with Blockchain and bitcoin, to open the way to their cryptocurrency or stablecoin they are preparing the ground for them to use it and adopt their cryptocurrency.

China is not in love with bitcoin. It's in love with the idea of creating it's own coin. It still has currency controls and a complete ban on exchanges.

I think the high volumes of bitcoin buying in Hong Kong is down to people there wanting to get their money out in case they get invaded by China.

High volume in relative terms of course, because the volumes in Hong Kong are still peanuts compared to the volume in other Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and so on.

I am more interested in finding out what the next stage is for people after having bought Bitcoin.... will they keep it in Bitcoin or convert it to dollars? Volatility is quite a concern especially for those having bought a lot of Bitcoin.

I really hope they will hold their Bitcoin's but wouldn't be surprised to find out that people convert it to dollars, either partially or in full.... their main goal was just to get money out of the country.

Well actually there is a way for government to stop it, but only from making it illegal and prohibit to use of cryptocurrency under their jurisdiction, that could stop the circulation of cryptocurrency in an area. No one wants to run illegally.  But most probably government would not do it, they would rather change the system than lose their financial stance just because of this, blockchain particularly.

There is nothing wrong about the fiat currency, it just happened that we have a better type of currency to use but is decentralized and no one has the control to it making it vulnerable for mass rejection. But we also delivering solutions regarding this so we can use a partial of the concept of cryptocurrency or maybe a full one in the future.

The risk that we are even talking about in bitcoin, is not really a terrible risk, the risk of bitcoin is just the volatility and the fear is that we could buy a coin right now and then see it dump within the next minute, but we also need to understand that bitcoin is such an established coin that even if it drops in price, it would always recover back later in the future no matter how long it is.
 
I know that those people that have invested in the last bull run when the value became like $20k, and then suddenly drop, they would have counted that has losses, which I don’t see as losses except the older of the coin panicky sell the coin, provide they don’t sell the asset out of panic, they will always get the opportunity in future to recover it back which we might now say that they lost their time instead.

If they are not in love with bitcoin, it shows that they are not in love with cryptocurrency because bitcoin is the only true technology that really represent what cryptocurrency is, and that which they claim to want to create is something that is going to be similar to digital payment system and I think that people will not be accepting it that much because there are other existing ones.

If they want to create a real cryptocurrency, they should do it in the right way because any of these currencies must definitely have a tier with bitcoin. Any currency that cannot be paired with bitcoin should not be counted as cryptocurrency, because not everyone will want to use their fiat to purchase such coin for privacy purpose and if you see the additional benefits of bitcoin, the people of china will always take it over their own currency.

If you really trust the bitcoin market then you would know that the market will recover eventually and without that trust you cannot invest in a market and when you make a decision to invest then you need to be a fool to sell at a loss, understand the meaning of the term investment and if you do that you will never sell at a loss and you do not need to be genius to know to hold when the market goes down.

For my view on that I think those countries with volatile currency are running into bitcoin and securing their money there for the fear of what can not be predicted about the their fiat. This is having a growing rate on bitcoin. For example, the awareness of what bitcoin is back then in 2017 and now are not the same thing. People have realized that you can invest in bitcoin or tether it.

then this proves a very correct hypothesis. When a country has political and public debt problems, people will come to Bitcoin more and hold it for a long time.
This hypothesis was true after witnessing the purchasing power chart of Hong Kong people. I believe that in the future Bitcoin will have even more purchasing power.

Even if that is correct and people are not using bitcoin as much as they are using the US dollar and gold the fact that they are using bitcoin is a very strong sign that when things get ugly economically people are going to use whatever means they have available to protect themselves from the mismanagement of the economy by the governments and if this means using bitcoin then they will do it.

This is why I have always thought that the thing that is going to push the adoption of bitcoin all over the world is going to be a global economic crisis because people will finally realize that the whole system was arranged in such a way to benefit only the rich and they will begin to use anything to get out of that rigged system.

People will turn to alternatives when their national currency lose money. Before there wasn't bitcoin, people used gold as alternative, other precious metals and other goods, but bitcoin beats them all, its easier to hide and transfer it, if we talk about some higher amounts, how will someone transfer gold, or anything else, bitcoin wallet full with bitcoins can be hidden anywhere, much easier.
I think its normal for people that live in economically volatile countries to seek for some safe heaven for their assets, bitcoin is the best for that until now, addition to that can be promising future, and that holding can worth much more some day.

We haven't really seen a global meltdown yet. In the last couple of decades it has mainly been the USD that people used as hedge and store of value, and to some lower degree as means of exchange as well.

Currently we have Bitcoin but that doesn't mean it's going to benefit from economic turmoil, especially with how people still consider it a very risky and volatile asset class.... stability is key to gain people's confidence.

If the price pumps and dumps by 20-30% every so often that's not helping people. People looking for alternatives want stability and not constantly stress out about the price having gone up or down significantly.

Stability of cryptocurrency is impossible since we all know that cryptocurrency is volatile in terms of value, meaning the price is changing time by time when there are transactions happening all around the world. The idea is that if we experienced downfall as of now, do not lose hope because there is a big chance that the price will come back again to its high value, all we need to do is to wait and HOLD that particular token we have. For you to gain a lot of money or profit you should learn different things with regards to the token you are holding.

One of the good things of bitcoin is its power as a decentralized storage of value and asset which are mostly needed by countries that are having problems and crisis with their own currency and country. The riot in Hongkong serves as a threat in hongkong nationals in losing their country as well as to the government they have. In relation to this, they are threatened with the possibility to lose their freedom and assets, and maybe this is the reason why they choose to put their assets in bitcoin because of its potential in the future.

Theoretically, it's possible that's why I disagree with your statement that cryptocurrency could not be stable. Prices face volatility and minimizing this volatility into a certain point where the changes aren't that significant i.e. including the stocks, cryptocurrencies and even the products we buy. It is a matter of how huge the market is meaning a market with higher volume would tend to have higher resistance and wall in so in a sense the prices would appear to be stable due to low volatility or rather the movement of the price is minimal.

But Bitcoin as a storage of vallue is very volatile. On that way they might also loose their assets because there is no guarantee of positive movements.
 Bitcoin can't help countries with volatile currencies and economy because it's volatile itself and they need stability for progress. It can only help individuals who are good investors or trader.

I heard from some news that the hongkong riot just only increase the use of bitcoin to store their wealth a little. Quite the opposite, people there are trying to move their assets to a country with good stability and if possible to gain a permanent residence aswell since they probably worry that their assets will be in danger.
Quite different to country with fragile economy that uses bitcoin to seek profit instead of utlising its function of stroing wealth which quite honestly too volatile.

Latin American payment providers are now using cryptocurrency:

https://www.coindesk.com/60-latin-american-banks-can-now-use-bitcoin-for-cross-border-payments


Looks like this is about businesses using crypto to speed up the rate they get their money.

I think when you do not know what your countries money will be worth in the next year, you tend to look for other stuff. For example in my country the value of our currency dropped significantly compared to other countries which resulted with a high inflation and that is why many people moved to dollar. I can understand why they moved to dollar, it is not really a bad idea because compared to many currencies dollar is stronger.

Still, I am not one of those people because I feel like bitcoin is a better store of value currency and yes I know that bitcoin has been doing recently but in the long term bitcoin is better compared to dollar. Maybe I am wrong, maybe they feel like gold/dollar is more guaranteed and they are right but I feel like in 10 years I will be doing much better.

This theory has less than 30% to be true. Cryptocurrency can be stable yes, but who will be the regulator? adding the fact that relationships between country are hard to please. Especially now with the current market situation where competition is highly on with various coins and projects volatile cannot be deny the main reason why we could not be into that theory. Plus the growing user of cryptocurrency whom they see as an investment rather than currency.

I still believe that these news reports are inflated. Bitcoin is not suitable as a store of value. For that purpose, you need to use United States Dollar banknotes, or gold coins/bars. Bitcoin was trading at $10,000 per coin a few days back. And now its exchange rate has fallen to $7,100 per coin. Anyone who considers such an asset as a store of value is out of his mind.

The demand in countries with economic crises that have much enhancement with an increase in inflation are the big Bitcoin adopters, not only Venezuela, Argentina, now Chile is joining, Colombia can soon do it, but the reason is simple, Bitcoin see it as a shelter for your money, regardless of its price drop is still the best option even above gold.

The volumes have been growing little by little in Chile, localbitcoins has some statistics:

https://i.imgur.com/DY4DR6v.png
Source: https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/CLP (https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins/CLP)

There are also other Exchanges that may have increased their volume, adoption due to economic problems is usually a plus for Bitcoin demand.

You have a point. If they are trying to avoid volatile currencies, why do they buy bitcoin instead of dollar?
I guess they might be choosing bitcoin because they believe on its long run potential, that is exactly the opposite of their local currency which is losing value without chance of recovery. But it's still a very risky idea.

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that countries with hyperinflation now prefer Bitcoin instead of global reserve currencies, such as the US dollar, to save their funds. After all, Bitcoin has a high volatility of value, which can expose savings to even greater risk than if the population left their savings in the national currency.

Demonstrations in Hong Kong really hit businesses there, as evidenced by the release of investments from Hong Kong dollars into other foreign exchange investments. This led Hong Kong's economy to recession. The impact of the demonstration was felt by me as an exporter of seafood such as lobster & red corral trout. As a result of falling demand from the Hong Kong market, prices have become very cheap.

Demonstrations in Hong Kong were used by the United States to harass China as evidenced by the US Senate's move to pass a bill to support protesters in Hong Kong. There were many conflicts of interest there. Both from the Chinese government, the Hong Kong Government, demonstrators, the United States, and even Taiwan.

While the increasing use of bitcoin and other crypto in Hong Kong because many demonstrators adopted Bitcoin as a form of protest against the interference of the Chinese government in Hong Kong. The demonstrators also received support from various crypto exchanges in Hong Kong with a water donation program for Hong Kong demonstrators.

Honestly, this was never before. because in China or in Hong Kong, there's always bad news about crypto. They say the majority are fraudulent and encourage people not to invest in it. so that has led to many people not being aware of bitcoin over the past time. As for the charts above, I think that only a few people in that country buy more bitcoin because they think bitcoin is at the bottom, and it's sharks. They collected a lot of bitcoins and later sold them at higher prices.

It is just an unfounded rumor. The first preference remains other assets such as gold coins, which are more stable than Bitcoin. A few individuals from these nations may be investing in Bitcoin. But compared to the gold and USD volumes, this amount may look minuscule. The main reason is, as you have pointed out Bitcoin volatility remains too high to be used as a store of value.

I pity the hongkongers, I know what it is like to be a protester for the rightful. It is expected for any country, especially when there is a calamity or crisis that they will need a decentralized network to store their valuables. And just so happen that cryptocurrencies is the top option for now, worth having bitcoins.  As long as there is a protest in hongkong the need of bitcoin will continue to surge, having their btc pair trades higher than the others. Some banks and stores are closing due to the events but people from hongkong can still process payments with the help of crypto. I literally see the vital role of cryptocurrencies in the future now with these occurrences.

People who see the news as the increase/decrease in prices of BTC and alt may say so.
Actually the news just utilized to manipulate the price.
The last news that I heard yesterday was the Gopax exchange in a hack worth 51.2 million $, should it be bad news, but the market shows the opposite reaction.

It shows that the people in the cryptocurreny community is now getting smarter than before. Before, people used to react so fast with the news online whether it is a fake or not because they are driven by their emotions but now we matured enough to just focus on the technical side of the market rather than fundamentals.

Cryptocurrency is only volatile because it's still small in terms of dollar amounts, and is not yet liquid enough. That means determined people can move the price with relatively little effort.

Once more institutional investors come into the space and billions rather than millions are traded daily, then the volatility should decrease.

Are you sure about the exchange? From what I heard, it was the South Korean exchange Upbit, which got hacked. Some $53 million worth of Ethereum were stolen, along with considerable amounts of TRX and BTT. But the hack occurred two days back, and if you remember there was a considerable decline in the exchange rates back then. The prices started recovering only today.

Crypto traders are becoming mature too on trading. That's why even a piece of big negative news like the Upbit, Gopax, etc hacking incident, it barely affects the price. Crypto Traders are becoming wiser too and with experiences from previous years plus losses  ;D  they become more cautious.

Bitcoin never intended to become a store of value and people starting investing in it due to its volatility. Because of fluctuations, bitcoin traders can earn on daily basis and the long term holders also get huge profits as the coin holds high potential too. Future belongs to bitcoin and people who are buying it now are the rich guys of tomorrow. Everyone is given equal chance to improve financial standard but only intelligent ones will avail at right time.

And that is the thing, all of those that complain that the short term movements of bitcoin means that it is not a good store of value forget that those that are looking for that characteristic are not really thinking on keeping their coins just for a few weeks they are thinking in the long term they want to keep their coins for years and in extreme cases for decades similar to what many people already do with gold.

And when you do that it is very easy to see that bitcoin is by far the best store of value available but obviously those that criticize bitcoin do not really want people to know this small fact.

It is also highly important to point out that Hong Kong had a huge surge in crypto exchanges. Not just volume and all, but also the companies as in exchanges, so that means there was so much interest that people started to build local exchanges there in rapid pace as well and there was a huge volume uptick as we all know.

This shows clearly that when you are not happy with your government, you tend to find other methods to put your money, and when you find something that allows you to both keep your money away from the government AND spend it at the same time as well that is the best clear choice you could ever have. Unfortunately there are too many old people that can't really comprehend how it all works but we could manage to help them as well we might see a huge increase.

I can't be sure that is true or not but somehow the price is indeed pumped instead of being dumped after the news regarding the hacking appear. It's like the whole market dont even care if there's any hacking happening but well, if it pumped then it's pumped.
Also we need to point out that the recent hacking could be a warning to the exchange that lacks the security and hopefully they will improve so that any exchange will become safer even though I'm not sure to those second rated exchange.

When the trust in the government fades then it is completely natural for people to lose their confidence in their fiat currency and try to find alternative methods to keep their wealth, historically governments have always tried to find ways to seize the wealth of their citizens and as you may guess their citizens have always found ways to try to avoid this, until recently governments were winning this battle because now most of the money is in electronic form and if they wanted they could steal it from you.

But now thanks to bitcoin things are changing and for the first time we have an electronic form of money that protects our wealth and since it is decentralized it is possible that governments will never find a way to destroy it.

The trust in the government is dissipated among ordinary citizens and they begin to move to the cryptocurrency sector. What the state cannot give them is that there is no stability in their work. Bitcoin and crypto investments have stability and profitability, and this must be taken into account. The percentage of transactions from the deposit, investment in bitcoin, is much higher than in the real sector. This, many are beginning to understand.

This is crystal clear from the investment people are making into bitcoin and the rate at which people are shifting to crypto currencies that they have lost trust in governments for their financial stability. They are no more in mood of paying heavy taxes. I am of view that governments shall make bitcoin along with other cryptos legal so that their financial burden could be shared and people do not depend on it totally.

It is a no surprise for the other countries such as volatile countries to have a surge demand in having bitcoin. Bitcoin is a great asset and it outperforms most of the traditional assets because of its fantastic return in just a few years. Bitcoin still has a lot of potential to grow and that is what the other people see so they are now cashing into bitcoin to seize that opportunity.

While bitcoin is not precisely the best option when it comes to maintain its value over the course of days or months when you read there are countries with such a huge inflation that people need to spend their money as soon as they get it or they will lose any opportunity to buy anything with it then it is obvious that bitcoin at that point becomes a decent option compared to the national currency people are forced to use, but even in those countries the demand for bitcoin will drop as soon as their fiat currency gets stabilized or if they decide to drop their currency and use a foreign one.