Argentina is not going Bitcoin

[cr1776]

Exactly right.  :-)

It is the classic case of devaluing a currency to the extreme.  One cannot devalue one's way to prosperity, only to misery.  The smart people (which seems like almost everyone in Argentina) are trading paper that becomes worth less every day for hard assets.

There is still a government crackdown on leaking any money out of the country.

what about physically carrying cash over the border. not smuggling or anything just staying within the legal limits. people who lived near the boarders could make a daily trip to carry what ever was within the legal amount physically in their wallets across the border. they could then buy bitcoins and bring the bitcoins back across. of course they would arbitrage for their effort.

The problem is getting rid of pesos. People have pesos and pesos worth nothing outside Argentina.  Look at the paradox: the Argentina Central Bank does not buy them at any price. 

[justusranvier]

One cannot devalue one's way to prosperity, only to misery.

Actually, quite the opposite.

The people who have control of the printing press, i.e. the people who control whether to devalue or not, most certainly can and do use devalue of everybody else to create prosperity for themselves.

Your statement about prosperity makes no sense; it's as you think the decision makers' lives are in any way connected with the lives of their victims.

[fran2k]

Just as we're talking about inflation. Some history...



Source

Argentina has the 9th position of inflation record with the 1981 inflation.

[cr1776]

Your statement that a country can devalue its way to prosperity makes absolutely no sense.  Please feel free to cite an example where a country devalued its currency continually and prospered.

Argentina is not going to devalue their way to prosperity, only misery.  I don't think they will prove me wrong.

If you were being purposefully obtuse and reading my statements about Argentina as referring to an individual (and given I was replying to a message about Argentina, not an individual that seems a big stretch), then yes, if an individual or small group of individuals control the printing press and prints themselves $50 billion and keeps it for themselves, then sure an individual can do so, but they will be killing their own currency unless they immediately trade it.

One cannot devalue one's way to prosperity, only to misery.

Actually, quite the opposite.

The people who have control of the printing press, i.e. the people who control whether to devalue or not, most certainly can and do use devalue of everybody else to create prosperity for themselves.

Your statement about prosperity makes no sense; it's as you think the decision makers' lives are in any way connected with the lives of their victims.

[xxjs]

it is probably really hard for Argentinians to convert local currency into BTC

even for people in the US, it was not really easy when Mtcocks stopped taking their money

And why should an exchange open up in Argentinia, to accept large amount of weak local currency, for BTC? What would they do with that local currency? They cannot move it out or convert.

In Cyprus the story was different, the currency was Euros. Only the bank transfers to the outside were halted.

It should be relatively risk free for an exchange, as they hold both the bitcoins and the fiat until a trade is done by the users. The risk is on the bitcoin seller, but that should only skew the price, trades should always be possible. It's just like the blue dollars.