Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Inflation, Fractional Reserve, and Bitcoins
by
db
on 15/07/2010, 23:45:21 UTC
InterArmaEnimSil, you are basically right. It's a bit frustrating that many people here keep thinking that banks won't be able to use bitcoins like any other currency.

However, some things are worth noting. There is nothing intrinsically special about banks. If I borrow 1000฿ each from my pals Alice and Bob and promise to pay them back anytime they want then together we will consider ourselves to have more than 2000฿. That's exactly the same kind of inflation. And it's no big deal. It's no big deal because it quickly stabilizes and then there is no more inflation. The only way to have ongoing inflation is to increase the base money supply and Bitcoin prevents that.

The problem with many banks today is not fractional reserves. The problem is that their risks are guaranteed by governments. So they take huge risks and enjoy greats profits while it lasts. When it blows up taxpayers pay. To make it worse governments often pay with "free" freshly printed money. Again Bitcoin fixes the money printing issue but not the guarantee issue (or maybe a little if it makes it harder to collect taxes).

Really?  They can "print" money by moving fake balances into their accounts.  This is impossible for now, as doing so would probably make the number of BTC in circulation exceed 21M.  However, in a while, when natural deflation sets in, and a loaf of bread is .000001BTC, there's plenty of room for banks to fictitiously expand back up to the 21M limit.

This sounds confused. In a bank run their problem is that they don't have enough real bitcoins and they can't create real bitcoins. What does the 21M limit have to do with anything?