Bitcoin Forum

The current war has a huge negative economic impact on the whole world. The Euro has been worth well more than the dollar for many years but they are on par right now and I don't think that things are going well for it, the winter is coming! I'm afraid the inflation of USD will continue for a while and both, USD and Euro aren't great options right now.

You need some money for emergency cases, so, you can't save everything in crypto because it's very volatile, the exchange charges you some fees to deposit/convert and withdraw.
I'm thinking about four currencies to hold for the next 2 years or more:

• Swiss Franc
• Norwegian Krone
• Chinese Yuan
• Japanese Yen

What are your plans? I want to get an answer, especially from Europeans cause we all lost 12% of our money in a matter of days.

What is the point of holding them for two years only? It's not like some apocalypse or major armed conflict is going to happen at that timeframe, so what is actually going to happen is that inflation creeps up to you just a little slower than holding everything in Euros.

Besides, Europeans have access to services like Revolut (I'm jealous), which let you store fiat and crypto in the same account, convert between them and pay whoever instantly, eliminating the exchange midleman.

Let me start by saying that fiat is not money, fiat is currency.

As an investment to keep your purchase power, I still stick to bitcoin, gold and real estate because all of them are good investments that are always appreciating over time (real estate may be different in other countries).

You need to have your own country's fiat because when you go to the grocery store in lets say London you can't really pay then with Japanese Yen!

You should never ever store anything in "crypto" because it is always dumping. Which is only bitcoin is considered a long term "investment" not cryptocurrencies.

Technically the profit should be high enough so that you don't care about the small amount of commission you pay, if it isn't then maybe you made some bad choices.

The problem with fiat currencies is that the government keeps printing more of them, specially when they face a crisis (like the ongoing energy crisis in EU). That means they all lose their purchase power.

Besides, at this point relying on another country's currency is very hard because of what the world is going through. For example if China invades Taiwan (which is very likely this year) it will pull Japan and Korea in that war which could tank all their currencies.
That's not to mention the economic war that China would wage on the world specially EU and US that have their economies tightly tied to the Chinese.

This makes the future very unpredictable in my opinion. Which is why I believe traditional assets like gold are more reliable than anything else. And of course bitcoin but with a higher risk due to how bitcoin is designed.

The classic option is asset diversification.
In connection with the situation in my country (the terrorist war unleashed by the Kremlin regime), it is logical to keep a "backpack on duty" and a set of assets for all occasions.
I have this:
- Most of the stock is in the US dollar (like it or not - but this is the currency that everyone accepts and gladly, and which is provided by the strongest economy in the world)
- Local currency - hryvnia, a small amount for settlements on the territory of Ukraine. Calculation of the volume - 2-3 months of family life (food, refuel a car, clothes, medications, etc.). The equivalent is not more than $4,000.
- Cryptocurrencies In wallets, 15 tokens from Bitcoin to Avalanche.
- A small reserve of euros (due to the difficult situation in the EU, the amount is small). Calculation - moving to the EU is allowed, no more than 2-3 months of family life + possibly renting housing + food. The equivalent is not more than $6,000.

Yuan - I wouldn't risk it. The growing global crisis of the Chinese economy is clearly not going to be positive for the yuan either. Inflationary process and a lot of difficulties are ahead.

From everything you mentioned, Bitcoin seems to be the best option for me, not only because the Euro is weakening and losing its purchasing value, but because I trust the decentralized system more than the institution called the ECB (European Central Bank). Given that my country is not yet in the Eurozone, I always have a certain amount of local currency that I need for everyday life, but luckily I can buy a lot directly for Bitcoin.

If I had to choose something else, perhaps the choice would be the Swiss franc for the reason that Switzerland has always been and probably will be neutral regardless of what happened in Europe. Of course, gold is always an option, in case everything goes to hell we will return to the time when it was a universal way of payment anywhere in the world.

I don't think holding fiat is a good option since it's all based on the government performance and you can't know which country is good in the future.

I'd say holding digital gold is the most safest choice in order to safe your wealth, since it's quite stable rather than Bitcoin. Holding Bitcoin is good too, but you should take a risk and have to consider if anything goes wrong. Also 2 years isn't a long term holding, it need at least 5+ years IMO.

1. Why fiat? More precisely, the part in fiat. Because - there are often situations when using a payment system or a debit card is simply technically impossible.
2. The ruble has not recovered, the ruble is artificially restrained in order to keep the population of the country of the world terrorist from panic :) Soon you will see the real exchange rate of the ruble...
3. Bitcoin - I will explain very simply: imagine that you bought, with all your fiat savings, bitcoin in November 2021... What would you say about bitcoin now? :)

These online only banks are still middlemen, and by using them you still have zero privacy, zero security, and a third party which can lock your account at any time.

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By choosing different fiat currencies, you are simply choosing different rates of loss. USD inflation is above 8%, as is the Euro. NOK is only marginally better at ~6.5%. CHF is still pushing 4%, despite historically being one of the most stable currencies in the world. Obviously you need to hold your local fiat (or USD if widely accepted and your local fiat is hyper-inflationary) to cover living expenses and emergencies, but holding fiat as an investment will only ever lead to loss of purchasing power. Unless you are making gains above the rate of inflation, then you are losing money.

I would only hold an emergency fiat fund in the best rate of return fiat account you can find. Everything surplus goes in to some kind of investment which will outperform fiat over the medium to long term.

Regarding holding gold, it is indeed the safest choice compared to holding fiat or Bitcoin,
but that does not mean it is free from risk because in holding anything there will always be risks,
what is important before making a decision do your research and consider carefully

I'm still holding on to bitcoins and trying to collect more bitcoins while I use the local currency to make ends meet. I haven't thought about having another currency yet because I still believe bitcoin can provide support for the present and the future.

If you think about those four currencies to hold for 2 years or more, you can start holding them but don't forget bitcoins to hold because, in my opinion, bitcoins could become more valuable in the future. Everyone has their own choice and it is just a suggestion and the rest, you must think about it and do some research.

That's what Bitcoin is for there to be an option where buying more during a downturn will store huge value in the future. But the fact is that when you hold fiat money, whether fiat is safe, even when inflation will still lose its value. Do you think inflation will not affect the currency you hold options?
When inflation hit and you still hold the fiat for storage of value? maybe you missed a lot about how the value store itself functions.

The problem with holding on to Fiat is this :

You have to take extra cautionary measures to keep it safe and to hide it, because it is a physical object. Ordinary thieves are familiar with it... so they target physical cash ..over digital cash.

Also, in a war scenario... people want to escape quickly with almost nothing on them that can be confiscated or raided... so to store an encrypted  Private key in the cloud, will be a lot better, than risking carrying loads of Fiat on you.  ;)

I still mostly hold USD. While it's not the very best currency in terms of performance since the past year, it's performing not-as-bad compared to most currencies. I'm really not interested in doing any other extra currency analysis.

Also, USD is the most accessible currency for me besides my local currency.

if BTC is accepted by hospitals, that would be cool.

in case of emergency means the one we have in home stash, mostly would answer the local currency.
USD is rising compare to the local currency.  its probably good to still have USD. the ones that i plan is to go in DEFO (decentralized forex) in WAVES platform where traders can buy digital yuan. i've been meaning to try it out.

Holding fiat currency is good, because it gives you liquidity but I don't see this one as an investment.
I suggest to hold only the currency that is accepted in your country which can give you instant liquidity once the calamity started on your place. Based on the current situation, having cash on hand gives you more peace of mind since during the calamity, almost all your online transactions will be limited. Again, having fiat is still advisable but never treat this as your investment because you will gain nothing from there. USD is also good to hold since it is accepted in every country.   

In addition, God forbid anything happened to that bank..... that will be an unfathomable loss. There are several cases where some banks face this type of issue of bankruptcy and other financial issues they usually face that leads them to fold up and leave their customer in serious financial loss.

There are also cases of theft (yep... happens here in my country) all your money you have saved in years will vanish into thin air and the banks will fail to give a valid explanation, rather they frustrate your effort in finding the root cause with bureaucracy bottleneck, corrupt practice.

Besides @op in a war scenario, I doubt the atsmospher will be sweet enough for you to walk in and withdraw some cash, it will be total chaos and banks will be heavily guided and strict, only your btc in your personal wallet will be your saving grace.

If there is really a need to choose then I might just go with Japanese yen. I'll rely to the forex traders that chooses although, it's actually all of those which includes EURO and USD but obviously, they're not the good choice now.

Since the idea is all about having emergency needs then you should just stay fine with the current currency that you've got. You'll use it then so it's better to have that less hassle and just put it into your local currency.

Otherwise, if you want to at least have that hedge against the inflation. They may say that bitcoin isn't the good option but soon they'll see that it is one of the best choice.

Let's expect a war, so if it is global III, the probability that the United States and China will be parties is high, so you cannot choose those them currencies.

Generally it depends on how variety of risks you are trying to take, if you are afraid then the Swiss Franc might be a great option but if not a global war, then the yuan, Brazilian real and the currencies of agro-country currencies.

The Japanese yen is suffering, but if you trust the recent decisions of the Central Bank and the ability of the Japanese to keep inflation under control (inflation there works in reverse), it may be the best currency, but it is difficult to say for sure that it will not be a party to the war

Fiat hodling is not encouraged especially if it is a country that is under performing. Hodling US dollar for me is preferable because the system has a strong regulation and monitoring of the financial activities in the country and I is evident in the rate that $ has measured neck to neck with euro this year and even sometimes edges over euro. But I will not prefer hodling fiat to crypto or gold. These two commodities mentioned are not regulated as fiat and so they are likely to increase higher and because they can be bought in units, the potential of making profit while hodling outweighs that of fiat.

Other than my local fiat currency, I tend not to hold any other fiat currency rather I hold unto investments such as Crypto, Bitcoin, Stocks and other investments. In case anything happens on these investment, I will try to minimize loss especially that I keep track of them most of time.

I have three months of expenses in the official currency, a few grams of gold that are easily convertible to cash and BTCthat in some ATM I could convert to cash as well. Two sources of income and a few savings and investments. I do not expect the apocalypse to come. With that I think I will be able to get through the next few years, which look bad.

Many (most?) countries have some kind of government backed bank insurance scheme, such as the FDIC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Deposit_Insurance_Corporation) in the US, which insures the money of depositors even if the bank collapses. See here for more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit_insurance

As much as I dislike fiat banks, losing my money because one has gone bankrupt is not a concern of mine, unlike all the people who have lost money on centralized exchanges and lending platforms which have gone bankrupt.

Are you sure you are talking about the right currency? Strong regulation and monitoring? As the Fed print trillions of dollars out of thin air? As inflation hits double figures? Maybe it is strong compared to some other fiat even worse performing fiat currencies, but the US dollar is on a downward spiral.

I understand your financial situation because the euro currency has decreased in value by 12% compared to the USD, so I believe you are anti-conversion from Euro to USD due to the inflationary impact of the war. I don't have an answer on which currency option to exchange for an emergency, but I just suggest to you:

- make sure you exchange to a currency that is stable and does not fall into the category of worst inflation in history or in recent years.
- choose a currency that is easily accessible on the nearest exchange or may also be supported for alternative payment modes, because you are only converting to another currency to avoid continuing inflation and you are also using it for daily purposes so make sure the currency is easily accessible to convert back to the Euro currency in the future.

Having exchanges or even gambling sites to charge you on deposit is unlikely and very uncommon. What is more common is charges on withdrawal, swaps but most times, if you trade p2p, your likely going to be charged except the charges traditional banks levy on processing the transactions but that's often on the buyer.

Most of us now are no longer a fan of fiat currency but the lack of used cases for cryptocurrency makes it in evitable not to mention that the fiat currency is never going away. On what fiat currency to hodl, I'll also like us to take a look at how bitcoin has been doing through the various crisis in our world.

Russia and Ukraine began accepting aids in bitcoin just before the war started although not as an official currency but, they acknowledged it and I guess the result won't be different on a world scale crisis. It could mean well for cryptos.

I hold $USD and $MXN. But it is difficult to obtain, unless it's cash and there are conversion fees.

I, also, have some specie coins that are in other fiat but the value is separate from the fiat value.

I don't think this topic needs any elongation. The best Fiat to hold in terms of emergency purposes is the Fiat of the country you in. This is a no brainer, if you need an emergency funds in Fiat especially for emergency purposes you need to have Fiat that can help you solve your situation and the Fiat that would be easily acceptable is the one of which government you currently in their country.

But if you need Fiat emergency purposes and you want one that is mild on Recession and it can also be very much acceptable even if you not In the Country that owns the Fiat. I would say the US dollars. This currency is like the general standard and could be most likely tradable any where in the world.

I am like many, holding both EUR and USD. First one because it is accepted in whole Europe and it is my local currency, second because it is and will be accepted worldwide, even in some specific countries. See no reason holding other currencies, as some people might be familiar with for example Swiss franc banknotes and could be confused seeing them. While everyone knows green pieces of paper with portrait of Franklin on them.

I'm not holding for profit but rather keeping and saving funds for emergency purposes. I prefer our local currency which is convenient and easy to use when an emergency happens. Using other currencies won't be ideal since it will cause hassle when we're in rush or we need fiat to pay or purchase anything locally. It's fine to hold other currencies but when it comes to convenience, I think using a local fiat would be more ideal.

Used to hold Euro just a year ago but decided to just sell it because I kinda needed the money back then. Right now I'm keeping USD and our local currency and it has somewhat proven to be a good thing because every currency are getting weaker against the dollar and I could just sell it for a profit on a currency of my choosing and come out on top, kinda. I think it's a no-brainer to hold your local currency for emergency purposes and if you don't, then you'll have a hard time since you will be needing to convert whatever currency you're holding and that usually comes with fees.

I don't have access to any of those mentioned fiat currencies. Besides my local fiat currency I can acquire stable coins (digital dollar), but I'm not inclined to do that. I'm relying mostly in bitcoin and using only small chunks of fiat (national currency) for daily expenses. In emergency case, I will have to sell my cryptocurrencies, but that is the kind of thing we pray that it won't be necessary.

Among every disponible currencies in the world right now I'm trusting bitcoin as the first and main one. Thinking and observing the global economical scenario and its actors, I'm pretty confident btc won't disappoint us, while I can't say the same about any other currencies, because they are heavily susceptible to manipulation from inside.

There isn't a safe bet on this game, unfortunatelly. Future is unpredictable and you have to take some risks anyway.

Do people store Fiat money from other countries with them for emergency cases? In my country government does not allow holding any international currency of more than a certain amount unless obviously, you can open a forex trading account, which is not easy to get open for normal retail traders, there are a lot of requirements for that. But yes if you want to hedge the risk then buying such futures is only the available option. Just talking the currencies which can go stronger will be the Chinese Yuan & Japanese Yen, one can even go for the Australian Dollar, it definitely won't be that much affected by NATO's fight with Russia.

In some countries it is not possible for citizens to store their money in a currency other than the local currency. I live in one of those countries and we are not even allowed to convert our money into international currency except for companies that operate on an international level. This includes even nationals working abroad who have to keep their savings in foreign banks in the countries in which they work.

Despite the recession that the world is going through, there are still few currencies that can be counted.

I quite agree, there are some forms of emergency that can render our local currency or fiat money useless. So while considering emergencies and how best to keep your money so it doesn't lose value or accessibility, be sure to keep it in say two unequal ratios where the higher ratio is allocated to cryptos and the lower ratio for your local fiat currency considering accessibility for emergencies.

I currently use fiat and crypto to store assets. I use fiat for my daily needs because it is undeniable that I can't live in the area I live in today without using it, as for crypto, this is my investment which until now I consider this a valuable one for me. But I in this case for fiat I still use local currency now and I don't even save in any other currency because my main storage remains in Crypto for Investment.

For store of value reasons then you could do whatever you want and put it all on crypto. Howevre you should also hold fiat for 2 reasons, one of them is spending, I spend fiat everyday because not many places accept crypto which is an understandable reason for why fiat should in our wallets all the time. But to hold stuff like BUSD or USDT etc? You should do that as well for when you think the market will go down and you could end up with a profit later on when you enter at a much lower level.

Same here.  It would be a hassle if I hold other fiat currency than the local currency.  I believe that is enough since I won't be going outside my country when the war escalates which I think has a very slim possibility.  I am more comfortable holding cryptocurrency than holding other currency and holding it in my bank account.  I also think that there will also be a problem if the bank stops operating for the said reason, and keeping a foreign currency in a "piggy bank" isn't convenient because I still need to convert it if I have to use it.

In times of globalization where you can even open accounts in other countries online, you are limiting your options to your limited field of knowledge, you are making a playpen of Fiat currencies and you are limited to a range that you know, on the other hand that 12% is recoverable If you have an investment plan combining crypto and Fiat, you just have to know which currency to invest in. It's not easy, but that's the point. Many just want to see the euro, the dollar and wait for something to happen and recover.

It is the old school of having a currency and expecting it to have an exchange rate in your favor to obtain a benefit, generally that benefit depends on large amounts, a case to look at is the AUD with the USD, it depends on what you need you can obtain a return.

The point is that you cannot think of Hodl Fiat if you work in a crypto environment, that is, if you have to manage emergency funds,  these must inevitably be included in your calculations of Hodl Crypto and not Fiat.

All this economic war are just distraction, they are meant to move money around, somehow distribute wealth and make new millionaires. USA understand this war but the enemies of USA are careless to understand how to handle it. Russia is now looking for help everywhere to defeat Ukraine they least expect to extended this war this long. Russia is most hit by inflation although the world is also suffering from it and other countries have realize the important of living without Russia and the oil.

For emergency needs I save local currency compared to holding other fiat currency, other than that, it is faster for me to access local currency if there is
an emergency need. I'm also like you not planning to go to another country, because I'm already very comfortable in my own country. So I also use
local currency more on a daily basis, so I don't think it's important to hold other fiat currencies. Moreover, if for investment, holding crypto is indeed
more effective which can provide benefits compared to holding other fiat currencies. So I never thought of holding other fiat currency in my bank account,
because I think the benefits of holding other fiat currencies are not that big for me.

Our local fiat money which I think is still the best option for liquidity. I have this emergency funds in my bank account so whenever a financial problem may occur, I can say that I’m ready. But that its not that much since I’m slowly building my financial capability and right now with fiat money, I see this one as of the important thing to do when handling your finances aside from investing. Though i find it hard sometimes due to limited resources but as much as possible, try to have a fiat currency in your account because it is still the best option that we can have.

My mind is completely blank when I have to think about which fiat currency I should hold. I only hold money for a short time, namely to shop at the supermarket. Even I am always surprised by the exchange rate of money that continues to shrink. maybe that's the impact of inflation. but I don't think it's a good thing that we currently hold this type of money for years. because the exchange rate will always shrink.
even long before this inflation news was crowded. in fact the value of any currency continues to shrink.

but I don't know where you live.
but what is clear is where I live now every year I feel the exchange rate of fiat money here continues to shrink.
and the value of the price of goods continues to increase every year.

so it's not really the price of goods that has increased. but indeed the value of the currency itself is shrinking or falling.
if you want to keep it for a few years. you better keep pure gold. or bitcoins. or if you have enough money. then you better buy it into a plot of land, or property that continues to increase in price every year.

Has the savings you once had been stolen or hacked by someone at this time? And if any of the questions I ask the answer is Yes. Then you need to be patient for that because there may be a few mistakes that you made, causing a loss in the savings that you have saved so far. I am concerned if it is the only asset you have or the asset you currently have. But I don't think you can't live after that loss.

I don't know what point you are trying to make with this topic. Also, regarding the fiat currencies you mentioned, I'm not from there, and I don't have any relatives there, so there's no reason for me to hold those for 2 years.

So what now if the cryptocurrency mate is volatile? That's the nature of digital currency and most people profit from that volatility. Apart from that, of course, the money that I will still hold is a cryptocurrency that I know will give me a profit for the next 2 years.

Holding some cash in different currencies for emergencies is a good idea. The question is what kind of emergency you prepare for. Holding Norwegian Krone or Japanese Yen might be hard to use if the financial system collapses. I am wondering which merchant on a different continent would really accept these currencies. They are only useful if people can rely on banks to convert them. For me the main emergency cash at home is in Euros as it's legal tender in my country. If there is some problem with electronic payments I can always rely on cash. The second largest cash at home is in US Dollars, I use this for emergencies and for travelling. The dollar is the best currency if you want to exchange it for a local currency in small foreign countries. I also thought about holding Swiss francs at home but decided against it. For me it made more sense to buy some silver and gold coins which could always be exchanged again.

I guess the answer to this question is different and depends on where people live, for some people they prefer to hold some cash in the case of emergency and they usually hold their local fiat cash for example if I live in Japan I'll hold some Yen and the same for other countries, but in the other hand if you look in the other side of the story, holding USD or Euro can be more reasonable and that's what I do because even if I have to take a trip to another country I can spend money since most of the countries accept these two fiat currencies.

'Worry' is the most felt impact of the war, and I'm sure many people are preparing their savings...

I may not be from Europe but I also secure my future and family with little fiat savings, what I prepare is my local currency and Australian dollars. why I chose the Australian dollar, it's because I see they are very stable and it looks like Australia is not badly affected by the war (between Ukraine and Russia that is going on).

even though it's not my local currency, I keep my assets in usd, because if it's exchanged into a currency I can give a profit of 1-2% if it's going up, but if it's still safe and under control I will still keep my assets into bitcoin not converting to fiat ,

I don't think that's the main purpose on why btc is created but btc is actually the same as them (money) where it will be used for buying however it doesn't have an unlimited supply, which is why it can resist the effects of the inflation. It is not safe to hold fiat money even if we disregard the inflation due to its properties which can be easily seen by anyone else. They might be tempted to steal it or you can also lose it by mishandling. It can also be damaged easily when there are natural calamities but that all can be avoided in btc because it is digital.

Like the op said, I think it's not bad to have some fiats with us as they might come in handy.

I would guess that the best thing to do right now would be holding fiat for spending, not for emergency and those are different things. If you live in Japan and have Yen that you need to spend everyday, that is your spending and that is not an emergency fund, it would be considered the same thing.

However, if you have Yen in the bank account and put it on savings etc etc for a "rainy day" then it would be different story because you still have Yen in that situation but you are not planning on spending that unless something bad happened. Which is why I highly suggest that you should have pure crypto for all your investments and emergency, but your spending could be whatever fiat you want.