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35 sats \ 3 replies \ @jimmysong 31 Jan 2023 \ on: Lebanon to devalue currency by 90% on Feb. 1, c.bank chief says bitcoin
This is not exactly what it seems. The official rate of 1500 LBP to 1 USD never changed while the black market rate has gone to 57000 LBP to 1 USD in that time. Making it 15000 LBP to 1 USD is still really a government fantasy. A lot of people in Lebanon were expecting 50000 LBP to 1 USD so it'd be more realistic.
This is a meaningless central bank move for internal accounting purposes. The real rate has been the black market rate the whole time.
Bitcoin challenges the State’s most treasured privilege: the ability to finance itself through inflation and seignorage, as well as other repressive tools a significant fraction of the world lives under - capital controls and local exchange rate manipulation.
As an example, Bitcoin is 8.5M argentine peso. Using the official exchange rate, that's 45,300 USD per BTC. The proper market rate for the peso is therefore
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Does anyone even sell Bitcoin in LBP? That would have shown the real exchange rate
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There are hundreds of foreign currency conversion traders, Bureaus de Change (BDCs), pop-up shops, and more where bitcoin is bought and sold.
There are established operators: CoinsFera, Sirius Coin, Cointral, AltcoinTurk Trader Base, NakitCoins, etc. and many that have offers on P2P trading platforms (e.g., LocalCoinSwap, Bisq, Paxful, LocalBitcoins, etc.)
There is no question as to the street price of LBP. Today it is in the 62,000 to 64,000 range (versus the fake official rate, of 15,000).
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