The Tragedy of Lebanon’s Currency Devaluation

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, the Lebanese pound (or lira) was devalued from 1,500 lira per U.S. dollar to 15,000 lira per USD. At the same time, the black market price of a dollar is 64,300 lira. In this episode, NLW gives the story behind the headlines and tweets, and explains why the World Bank calls Lebanon one of the worst economic crises in the last 150 years. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M= Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW - Join the most important conversation in crypto and Web3 at Consensus 2023, happening April 26-28 in Austin, Texas. Come and immerse yourself in all that Web3, crypto, blockchain and the metaverse have to offer. Use code BREAKDOWN to get 15% off your pass. Visit consensus.coindesk.com. - “The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and research by Scott Hill. Jared Schwartz is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. Music behind our sponsor today is “Swoon” by Falls. Image credit: Malcolm P Chapman/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk. Join the discussion at discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.
0:09.1	It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.
0:15.3	The breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.
0:20.4	What's going on, guys?
0:21.5	It is Saturday, February 4th, and that means it's time for the weekly recap.
0:26.3	A quick note before we dive into today's show, there are two ways to listen to The Breakdown.
0:30.8	You can hear us every day on the Coin Desk podcast network feed, which comes out in the afternoon,
0:34.6	and is featured alongside other great Coin Desk shows, or you can listen on the breakdown-only feed, which comes out a few hours later in the evening.
0:41.6	Wherever you're listening, if you would take the time to leave a rating or a review,
0:44.4	I would so appreciate it as it makes a huge difference in new people finding the show.
0:49.1	All right, friends, well, if you have been on Bitcoin Twitter this week,
0:52.0	you've probably seen some tweet like this
0:54.3	hyper-viral message from Leah Halpern. She writes, Lebanon's central bank has announced it will
1:00.2	devalue its currency by 90% as of tomorrow. Imagine waking up one day and your life
1:05.5	savings are gone. Absolutely criminal. Now, on the surface, this is a totally understandable
1:10.7	take, but in many ways
1:12.2	what happened this week was not the trigger event, but instead, the culmination of years of
1:17.2	monetary and economic horror for the people of Lebanon. So today we're going to try to give
1:21.5	all that a bit more context, and this is a story I've been following almost as long as this podcast
1:25.8	has been around. In April 2020, I released an episode called When Currencies Fail, a primer on the crisis in Lebanon.
1:33.3	At that time, part of why Lebanon had exploded into consciousness for the citizens of Bitcoin
1:38.3	Twitter were provocative headlines saying that Bitcoin was trading at $15,000 U.S. dollars
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Blockworks, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Blockworks and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.