Post
Topic
Board Economics
Topic OP
Medium of Exchange vs Store of Value - and effect on BTC worth
by
npl
on 30/11/2013, 14:08:45 UTC
Is Bitcoin primarily a medium of exchange or a store of value? No financial instrument can be both things equally well. Despite what some Bitcoin proponents believe, specialization in one direction is inevitable (many people who seem to think it can somehow be both are the same ones advocating 'buy and hold forever'...).

The BTC paradox is that when it was created, it was intended to become primarily a medium of exchange (so Satoshi claimed) but the manner in which the protocol was devised makes it far more suited to be a store of value.

If it does become a significant store of value what might it be worth? Obviously we still cannot say with any certainty, but to determine the upper limit assume Bitcoin somehow fully replaced gold. Then the price of 1 BTC would roughly equal $330,000 (5.6 billion ounces*1250/21,000,000). Of course that is the upper limit and not very realistic.