There's not much difference between an inflation rate of 440000% and 880000%, it just means that the bolivar doesn't work anymore.<p>Money is a purely social construct. It's only worth something when people collectively believe and trust that it's worth something.<p>It's a popular idea that dollars and euros derive their value because taxes are paid in that currency, or because it's backed by the state's military power.<p>Venezuela shows that neither of these are the source of the currency's value.<p>Collective belief is a pretty fragile foundation to build an economy on, hard to build and easy to destroy.<p>Another term for "collective belief" is "consensus". We're witnessing a disintegration of political and economic consensus not only in Venezuela, but also in the US.<p>What happens to the dollar when public consensus, trust and collective belief is weakened?<p>This is why I find the decentralized, trustless consensus of cryptocurrencies to be especially attractive at this moment in history.