Some things are near incomprehensible to us in the West.
One was what happened in Lebanon after the port explosion. An Australian who had married a Lebanese wife and moved to Lebanon reported the couple had decided the move was a bad idea, and were saving for a relocation back to Australia. Then the explosion happened, and the government literally ran out of money. The solution was apparently to raid the citizens savings accounts. From https://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/lebanese-cannot-access-mone... :
> As a result of monetary policies implemented by central bank Governor Riad Salameh, people are currently unable to withdraw money even from local currency accounts, she added.
I don't know if their savings were permanently taken or merely "borrowed" for a while, but in any case the move to Australia was taken off the table when it looked most desirable.
In that scenario, the non-reversibility of Bitcoin transactions looks real attractive. I think it is fair to say crypto currencies look most attractive when the traditional trust networks we humans have crafted out of out of bankers, institutions and laws break down. While the crypto currencies have their weaknesses - the 51% attack is very real and the power consumption of Argentina can seem over the top, they provide a very concrete, measurable level of trustworthiness. You know what it will take to break it. The soft human trust networks can and do break in a myriad of ways, so often we given them a name - "black swan events".
A haircut on savings accounts is comprehensible. It happened in Cyprus during the GFC. Inflation and/or negative interest rates (like in Europe) can also be viewed as a slow bleed on savings that are not invested in hard assets.
One was what happened in Lebanon after the port explosion. An Australian who had married a Lebanese wife and moved to Lebanon reported the couple had decided the move was a bad idea, and were saving for a relocation back to Australia. Then the explosion happened, and the government literally ran out of money. The solution was apparently to raid the citizens savings accounts. From https://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/lebanese-cannot-access-mone... :
> As a result of monetary policies implemented by central bank Governor Riad Salameh, people are currently unable to withdraw money even from local currency accounts, she added.
I don't know if their savings were permanently taken or merely "borrowed" for a while, but in any case the move to Australia was taken off the table when it looked most desirable.
In that scenario, the non-reversibility of Bitcoin transactions looks real attractive. I think it is fair to say crypto currencies look most attractive when the traditional trust networks we humans have crafted out of out of bankers, institutions and laws break down. While the crypto currencies have their weaknesses - the 51% attack is very real and the power consumption of Argentina can seem over the top, they provide a very concrete, measurable level of trustworthiness. You know what it will take to break it. The soft human trust networks can and do break in a myriad of ways, so often we given them a name - "black swan events".