I think you mean that using USD and ZAR enabled people to start buying products again. They still have and had major inflation; but instead just had a means to buy things again.

Exactly quantifying inflation there is a problem due to government intervention, but the fuel price is at about R 50 per litre (ZAR 15 = USD 1); biscuits that cost R 12 in South Africa is something like R 60 there and the way I understand it it doesn't matter whether you pay in USD or ZAR you'll still see the effect of inflation it the actual relative cost of products. Again, a lot of this is artificial due to taxes, shortages, government, etc.

The comment about telecommunications is on point though, all of the Zimbabweans I know are critically dependent on phones and especially cheap smartphones. Somehow, by getting the cheapest data options (in South Africa data is relatively expensive for no particular technological reason other than the companies ripping you off), they use whatsapp to get jobs, talk to their family, arrange money transfers, etc.

Zimbabwe's story is a very sad one, especially when taking into account the potential that the country once had and the ingenuity and willingness to work hard of its peoples.

Wow: It was redenominated three times (in 2006, 2008 and 2009), with denominations up to a $100 trillion banknote issued. The final redenomination produced the "fourth dollar" (ZWL), which was worth 10^25 ZWD (first dollars).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

Yep I have a collection of the notes from 1 to 100 Trillion. They are so intersting

There are problems with that. For one, consider that if all of a country's debt were denominated in bitcoin. For instance, the government issues bonds that can be redeemed when they mature for some quantity of BTC.

Now consider what happens if the value of bitcoin goes up suddenly. The government now is much deeper in debt than they were planning to be.

Sometimes having your own currency has benefits, for the country and for the world economy as a whole. For instance, if a country goes into recession and the value of their currency drops, then their debt can shrink (if it's denominated in local currency) along with the economy so that it doesn't bankrupt the country. Also, when the price of local goods drops with respect to other currencies, it encourages exports which usually helps the economy recover.

If you use a currency controlled by some other country or institution (i.e. the Euro), you don't have these safeguards. That's true as well if the currency is controlled by no one in particular (e.g. Bitcoin).

I don't know what Zimbabwe's particular problem was with their own currency. Sometimes using an external currency makes sense (like the Bretton Woods system in Europe before the Nixon shock in 1971). But it can be dangerous as well.

(A real economist could probably explain this all better. I just recently happened to read a book on all the problems with monetary policy in Europe written by Yanis Varoufakis, who served as Greece's finance minister for three months.)

These mechanisms you mention are all mechanisms that have historically been used, but there is a widespread consensus that it's not the right thing to do. Best practice is that a central bank should be independent of government and their mandate should not be to meddle with the valuation of a country's debt but to keep the value of the currency stable. For example, for the ECB it would be completely impossible to make monetary policy to suit the fiscal needs of all Euro-area countries since they are in wildly differing situations as far as their debt-levels and fiscal policies are concerned. Fortunately that's not part of the ECB's job description, though. Their job is: Keep inflation at a target that's close to but not exceeding 2% over the medium term. In theory the Fed should be just as independent from the U.S. government as the ECB is from any European government.

Of course if you believe anything you just said about the ECB you are really delusional. They are very much dependent on a few European governments (primarily France and Germany), this became readily apparent during the financial crisis of 2008. The Bundesbank president at the time had served in the Kanzleramt before.

I believe that starting a comment with accusing somebody of being delusional is not in line with HN guidelines -- see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The national central banks don't have all that much to say within the ECB system and are basically a historical remnant of a system that has been superseded and made obsolete (like the queen of England).

Personally I don't have a problem with somebody serving in government administration moving on to a role that's independent of government. Not everybody in administration is a political entity, and it is very possible for somebody who had been a political entity to leave politics behind. The same people who like to spin everything into conspiracy were also keen to point out that Mario Draghi had previously been with Goldman Sachs. ...so if it is somebody from public administration, there's a conspiracy theory. If it is somebody from business, there's a conspiracy theory, too. In that case where are these people supposed to come from? In my opinion it's a good thing that people need a proven track record of some kind or another to be eligible for offices like that, you can't just pick them up on the street just because, for political reasons, you require that they should have no past of any kind.

And, finally: European sovereigns weren't particularly in trouble in 2008. It was in 2010 that the crisis had made its way into the accounts of sovereigns, most notably the Greek debt crisis which later expanded into a debt crisis for Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. During that time, this mechanism was, indeed, a much discussed topic, but precisely in the sense of what I previously wrote: It was a historical precedent for how a sovereign debt crisis plays out when you can't just inflate your way out of it.

Yes, cryptocurrency and other digital currencies like Amazon gift card codes are used in Venezuela sometimes to avoid the theft risk of paper dollars.

What would be the benefit?

Good old stable-valued bitcoin.

Compared to the inflation rate of Zimbabwe?

I'll take crypto currency any day, over a guaranteed 40% loss every year. At least crypto has the chance of going up.

Crypto is a lot more volatile than the USD (or a basket of currencies). That's why Coinbase created Stablecoin.

But it is still a lot less volatile than the Zimbabwe dollar.

This is not about replacing money in the US. It is about replacing money in countries where there is already a huge inflation rate.

Stable coin would solve that.

But then if you are using Stablecoin as your currency, what's the benefit over the dollar?

Not if you run out of electricity