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The currency of Laos is something else. In 1979, it started with what could be considered reasonable denominations:

1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 Kip (that's the name) and they had coins too for fractions of a kip.

None of these are worth anything today. In 1988, 500 Kips were added to the mix and the 1000 kip note was added in 2003. From what I can tell, the 1,000 is the lowest note in circulation today., worth about 5 american cents. The exchange rate is 17,000 to one to the USD right now and I regularly pay for dinner using 100,000 kip bills.

In terms of devaluation, the kip went from 100 to 100,000 over 44 years. That's 17 percent per year.

Oh, and the kicker: ATMs have withdrawal limits of 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 kip. So at best, you're getting 88 bucks of the local shitcoin out of the machine at any time. Adventures in late stage fiat.

Jogi 2y ago

I ask people: What kind of money do you prefer? Kip, Bath or USD? Most tell me it doesn't matter. "I exchange Kip to USD later" is usually the answer. Which tells me it matters. They hold dollars instead of Kip.

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Discussion

Jogi 2y ago

You'd think there are places that take sats, right? Wrong. I've not seen a single one in Laos. I can't tell you if it is because of lack of knowledge or because of legality. It might be because everything is cash here anyway. You can't pay with card anywhere.

But government is not heavy handed in day to day life from what I can tell. Notably, many local vehicles operate without license plates. Why? "No need. No police here. Only need license plate in city".

So regulation or legality seems not so likely an explanation. Might be pure ignorance and a lack of local BTC-USD liquidity.