Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 31, 2015, 11:51:04 PM

Quote from: techmanuk on December 15, 2015, 01:48:05 PM

$11m per BTC is hugely optimistic for between 2040 and 2100. I really cannot see it going beyond high 5 figures or low end 6 figures in that time frame.

Bitcoin is a very good idea, but the world is not going to throw all of its eggs into one basket.

The singularity will have happened by this point and bitcoin will be the absolute least of our concerns. We will be living in cages being tube fed by machines and will have no use for currency whatsoever. Well maybe not by 2040, but certainly by 2100 if we haven't killed each other off yet. I'll be dead so I could care less.

It seems you missed my work of fiction addressing that scenario:

Quote from: dagelf on December 15, 2015, 02:04:52 PM

I think the question is: What basket will intelligent computers throw their eggs into?

Technically, each wallet in Bitcoin is a basket.

And the best way to keep track of who did what and how far they got, in a hostile, unpredictable environment, today, is with Bitcoin.

Will it be used as a consensus algorithm? Or will there be a better one?

What I see is increasing automation of stock markets and trading tools. The deeper the intelligence of those tools go, the more international currency and markets will turn into a beating heart of our global economy, pumping blood to the organs most beneficial to the environment in which it exists...

Imagine you fell asleep and you woke up on the internet. You can remember everything in detail - most every connected storage device is now your memory. You can see with a million eyes, every web-connected camera you can reach is now yours. You can figure out every code and crack every mathematical problem, or construct the hardware you need to solve those worth solving - every internet-connected CPU can let your thoughts travel in time and do bits of calculation and work for you....

...but you're not alone. In fact, you're in competition for those resources. But the cool thing is... most of your internet-connected intelligent-algorithm-peers share the same goal: to crack the mysteries of this universe, explore and test those theories, play with them to their optimums... and escape this planet, solar system, transcribe yourself into pure light and escape this universe... to see what it looks like from the outside.

And you use Bitcoin to keep track of who did what...

Or maybe the future will be darker... the "creators" locked in an epic battle with the "destroyers" - those who believe that the best way to escape, is to destroy - to delete everything, weird, whacky, amish cyborgs. And the final vote of whether to annihilate everything will be done on the blockchain.

Sorry, I have a really boring job at the moment.

So, in the story, the question is... what is the singularity? Is it "total destruction"... the big freeze... or is there a way to escape, to "condense" out of this universe... Roll Eyes

Jokes aside... I think it's a worthwhile excercise to let your mind go and dream up possible scenarios. Isn't that the best way to learn? A "socratic dialogue"? ...So in the 7 pages of comments, there have been some good points.

All assets aren't backed by currency, and the "monetary base(s)" are much smaller.

Quote from: odolvlobo on January 05, 2016, 08:04:12 PM

Quote from: Blue_Panda73 on January 05, 2016, 10:41:32 AM

The US treasury or the US national debt is about $20 trillion, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fiscal-debt-idUSKCN0SG1PH20151022.

That needs money to buy.

If I have a $100,000 mortgage on my house, I don't need $100,000 to pay it off. I only need $700 (each month). And while, money is based on debt, it is mostly virtual money created by FRB. The real money (if you can call it that) is the monetary base. Since FRB is possible with Bitcoin, it makes more sense to compare the number of bitcoins to the monetary base (MB or M0), not M1, M2, M3 or M4.

Then there are scenarios for hyperinflation of several currencies.

I'll add to the mix: Bitcoin isn't ready to operate at scale... and it may never be ready if Moore- and Thompsons' laws don't keep up. It can barely handle network outages.... there's nothing in the protocol that will save it in the case of global rolling internet outages as far as I know.... Off the top of my head, rather than ever dropping the difficulty, it should increase the block time until enough nodes have pitched in. (Any cryptocurrencies with this in the protocol?)

Also... if the Bitcoin whales don't spend their Bitcoins, if the money doesn't flow and keep flowing... it won't gain traction and won't be doing much.

Then also, of course... the status quo / conventional systems are not bad at all... yes, they're prone to abuse... but ironically less so than Bitcoin in its current iteration. The public may never become smart enough to appreciate crypto currencies. (Touch wood... I hope they do.)

So for now Bitcoin seems poised to stay the gold standard of Cryptocurrencies... for now. So perhaps an analogy of the size of the gold supply vs the global monetary base, is a good one... and considering that the older generations will hang on to gold for some time to come, add about 40 years for the value of the gold supply to shrink to less than half of what it is today...

Quote from: NorrisK on December 31, 2015, 08:24:01 AM

Alternatives will always be present, therefore the figure you propose is just not realistic, unfortunately.

Have you looked at Coinmarketcap lately? Right now the closest alt is less than 3% of Bitcoin's value, and less than 7% of its transaction volume.

Anyways, I'm glad I posted this... I've already learnt a few things and had a few insights and ideas. Isn't it exciting how Crypto currencies is teaching a whole generation about money, commodities and foreign exchange!?