Quote from: rickadone on February 10, 2018, 05:03:13 PM

Quote from: Samarkand on February 03, 2018, 02:53:09 PM

Quote from: 1Referee on February 03, 2018, 02:09:46 PM

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LN tackles all above annoyances that people 'suffer' from in today's market, and will stimulate people to transact with each other far more than we can imagine right now. In other words, LN is a major adotion booster, that's a fact. Regarding using it as payment to purchase goods and whatnot, I more or less agree that it won't change very much in that aspect. It has partly to do with the volatility, but the main point is that people don't want to spend something that can jump up significantly in value the next day. That's something we have been dealing with for years now.

Couldn´t it be a good thing if people are reluctant to spend Bitcoins, because they are worth
more in the future? Several economists argue that assets like Bitcoin actually change people´s time
preferences from a high-time preference to a short-time preference. With a short-time preference
people actually think more of the long-term and increase their savings.

One could argue that this would be beneficial for the individual, because having savings protects from
sudden loss of income and also beneficial for society, because it would decrease the ubiquitous overconsumption.

There cannot be over-consumption. First, you should understand one thing that bitcoin is limited in supply. Secondly, real life usage will issue in more demand for the currency as people only do not see it only as an asset or speculative one, but something that is always going to be needed and used without having to convert to fiat and transaction between anyone anywhere in the world is going to always happen with the speed of light.

These two things, Bitcoin as a speculative asset and as a currency, seem mutually exclusive to me. To say it differently, unbridled speculation prevents Bitcoin from being used as a fully developed currency due to high volatility. But, on the other hand, if Bitcoin was stable as rock and ready to be used as a means of payment, it would be no more interesting to speculators, which strive for volatility.