Currencies like the Turkish lira and Iranian rial have been crumbling lately; the lira alone has dropped nearly 50% in the last year.

At Nomad Capitalist, we see opportunities for investors and those wishing to plant flags.

There are the obvious benefits of (temporarily) being able to buy cheap stuff in that country as a tourist, from shoes to home decor items whose sellers generally won’t adjust their local-denominated prices overnight.

However, there are also arbitrage opportunities.

For example, Turkey has already proposed reducing the minimum for its citizenship by investment program from $1 million to $300,000 in an effort to encourage investors.

That would place Turkey on par with programs like Grenada and create an alternative set of passport opportunities.

Andrew sees opportunities for arbitrage in countries that price assets in their own currency, but allow them to be paid for in other currencies. He thinks there will be opportunities to internationalize at a discount as this happens.

He also thinks new countries will enter the fray: Montenegro, Moldova, and others have shown that countries seeking cash are open to new internationalization ideas from tax residency to second passports to easing investment criteria.

It is an oft-repeated mantra to buy “when there’s blood in the streets”, and buying in “falling knife” economies may be hard to time. When done properly, Andrew thinks certain countries may offer excellent benefits.

source