Quote from: Hopalong on September 13, 2015, 09:13:54 AM

Quote from: billyjoeallen on September 13, 2015, 08:30:33 AM

Quote from: Hopalong on September 13, 2015, 08:00:19 AM

Quote from: JorgeStolfi on September 12, 2015, 06:14:56 PM

Quote from: Cconvert2G36 on September 12, 2015, 04:14:39 AM

Can you imagine a design of cryptocurrency that would be to your liking, or is the concept as a whole damned to failure in your mind?

Hopefully that negative interest would be enough to dissuade hoarders and speculators.

Most of this forum think the inflation of fiat currencies is a bad thing and that bitcoin has solved a problem with its fixed supply. They dont understand that inflation is a very important tool to keep investments going.

Imagine your national currency without inflation. The money you have in your pocket would never loose value. Seems nice if you dont have a lot of money but what happen if you had a lot of money. You could just hoard the money and live of ot for the rest of your life. There would be no interest in investing to make more money since investing is a risk.

With todays inflating fiat there is no point in hoarding money. Your money supply loose value if you just hoard them. You have to get the money out there and work for you. Either by investing or putting them in a bank and let them invest for you.

A fixed supply economy like bitcoin would be the end of investing. Why invest if you can just hodl to increase your holdings.

Perhaps you didn't read up where I explained that "hoarding" is savings and it is absolutely essential for a healthy economy. If there is no incentive to consume less than one produces, an entire economy's wealth is stagnant at best and consumed in one generation at worst. We are currently watching this play out on a global scale.

It's laughable to claim that there would be no investing with a deflationary currency. The late nineteenth century in America saw prices fall almost everywhere and a massive increase in the standard of living. People would still spend a currency even if they knew it would go up in value forever because nobody lives forever. They just wouldn't spend it frivolously. That's a bad thing? We all need billboard-sized flat screen television sets and a new car every two years?

You must separate normal working people and rich people as i tried to do. Buying a new television is not investing. Building a sky skraper is investing.

Inflation gives those with a lot of money a push to get their money invested somewhere or it will loose value. A fixed supply coin like bitcoin is not good for investing but for holding. If we imagine a future with mainstream use of bitcoin it would be better to hold your bitcoin than to use them. The more you hold the more you earn because the value only goes up. Only stupid people would invest money they know would increase value into anything that might be risky. Thats why national banks will force inflation to the right level. To low inflation would ruin the economy since all investments stops. To high inflation is also bad since it makes people swap their money for something that will hold value and nobody invests.

The fixed supply of bitcoin is only good for speculation like this thread is about. Knowing what the supply is and what it will be in the future makes it easier to do the right moves when you trade.

Separate "normal working people" from rich people? I completely disagree. "Rich" people need to save for truck factories the same way that people like me need to save for a truck. People who are pressured to spend their savings before it gets diluted through inflation are more likely to misallocate their capital. They could for example build a solar panel factory only to find that technological advances makes their solar panels obsolete.

The people who make the argument for inflation because it frees up capital are short-sighted. Capital that is freed up by definition is not available for future use.