The coin and my argentinian experience
My intention is not to convince anyone about this, this is not financial advice. I still don’t know if I’m in a position to say that it will bring down the dollar and all that we saw as pre-established but I do have my position on the matter, and I also have my experience, after living in several countries, and mainly experiencing the eternal financial debacle of my country, Argentina.
First and foremost, I started accumulating Bitcoin back in 2016 when it was starting to go mainstream. Every now and then it would go up and it would be in the news, or on internet sites. I would like to draw a parallel here, at that time, 1 Bitcoin was worth approximately 1,100 dollars, or in Argentine currency ARS 16,500, 100 dollars used to cost ARS 1,500. Bitcoin has a characteristic that fascinates me, it is a limited, finite good.
2016:
| BTC | USD | ARS |
| 1 | $ 1,100.00 | $ 16,500.00 |
There are already about 18 million in the world, and there are approximately 3M more to be issued, and nothing more. That means that there will be 21 million Bitcoins for 10 billion people in the world, once the mining of Bitcoins is done, estimated for the year 2140 approximately. I like economic theory because I like to know how things work. In my country things don’t work. We are used to have between 30 and 50% inflation per year. This, consequently, made our currency practically obsolete, and people in Argentina perceive their purchasing power in dollars. This means that if an Argentinean wants to buy a house today, they think in dollars, not in pesos. If they want to buy a car, dollars, not pesos, a computer, the same thing. Needless to say that, due to the fiscal policies of monetary expansion (non-stop printing of money), devaluation was also present, taking down the currency by 50% to 80% in 3 or 4 years. Thus, the purchasing power of the Argentinean people is currently at rock bottom.
The story of bitcoin, at this point, is known by almost everyone, but in my particular case, coming from Argentina where the government allows to buy for savings up to 200 dollars per month, and nothing more, buying Bitcoin can be the store of value that people need to avoid the constant exchange rate fluctuations that do so much damage to the purchasing power of the people and dispose their money AS THEY WANT. It has been 4 years since my first transactions with Bitcoin, today one Bitcoin, as almost everyone knows, is worth approximately 40,000 dollars. What not everyone knows is that if an Argentinean in 2016 had put those ARS 16,500 (1 BTC) in a traditional fixed term deposit in a bank, today he would have approximately ARS 89,000 (0,011 BTC). A Bitcoin today, 4 years later, is worth ARS 7,000,000.
2021:
| BTC | USD | ARS |
| 1 | $ 40,000.00 | $ 7,600,000.00 |
If invested ARS 16,500 in the bank system of Argentina in 2016:
| ARS | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| $ 16,500.00 | $ 23,100.00 | $ 32,340.00 | $ 45,276.00 | $ 63,386.40 | $ 88,740.96 |
