Quote from: myrkul on July 05, 2011, 01:04:09 AM

Quote from: Arrow on July 05, 2011, 12:44:37 AM

In a sense, Bitcoins do not actually have a limit.

If the market grows big, and more is printed you are essentially stealing from those who already hold bitcoin because you are diluting their coins.

But instead the decimal point can be moved over so that you have 10x the # of bitcoins, of course each bitcoin is now worth 1/0 of the original price. This way we always have enough, but no one has their funds diluted.

Not quite. The decimal is never moved. 1 bitcoin will always be 1 bitcoin. but if we 'run out', we can start denominating prices in smaller increments. ie, .1 BTC instead of 1.0 Essentially, every bitcoin is now worth 10x more (at least at that store, there's no central bank deciding that)

The FAQ says otherwise: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#But_if_no_more_coins_are_generated,_what_happens_when_Bitcoins_are_lost?_Won_t_that_be_a_problem?

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Not at all. Because of the law of supply and demand, when fewer Bitcoins are available the ones that are left will be in higher demand, and therefore will have a higher value. So when Bitcoins are lost, the remaining Bitcoins will increase in value to compensate. As the value of Bitcoins increase, the number of Bitcoins required to purchase an item decreases. This is known as a deflationary economic model. Eventually, if and when it gets to the point where the largest transaction is less than 1BTC, then it's a simple matter of shifting the decimal place to the right a few places, and the system continues.