Please help me understand/explain to an economist friend of mine...
He argues that Bitcoins have no chance in global success because a this system be used to create credit.
Bitcoins cannot be used to leverage. --> You cannot use Bitcoins to create credit. ---> It can't replace existing credit already created by the current system.
For Bitcoins to be successful, it has to be able to replace the existing debt!
Please help me:
Where is he right/wrong?
He's wrong because I can owe you 100 bitcoins without having 100 bitcoins. Heck, I can owe you 25 million bitcoins even though 25 million bitcoins will never be in existence at the same time.
Unfortunately, no. Just like the gold standard, a paper money system was created with gold as backing, and as gold backing was made redundant at a point. It's equally plausible to create a paper system with 25 million bitcoins and get rid of Bitcoin backing at some point. But the question here is whether Bitcoin can get to that stage. (?)