Quote from: squatter on July 27, 2019, 10:16:26 PM

It's not easy considering Gresham's law. As long as weaker currencies like fiat money ("bad money") are widely accepted, people will opt to hoard away "good money" like bitcoins.

Gresham's law is fallacious, it simultaneously implies a free-market context, and a context where people are being forced to accept a certain type of money. Both cannot co-exist.

History tells a different story to Gresham:

bad money is bullied into people's commerce
bad money is popularized through deception i.e. bank notes
good money is bullied out of people's hands

if an example exists where people willfully chose a poor form of money for any significant length of time, it was followed by an economic collapse that taught them about the effects of bad vs good money

Quote from: squatter on July 30, 2019, 09:26:38 PM

I'm not sure that volatility needs to be driven out for mass adoption. A volatile Bitcoin simply needs to be better than the alternatives.

And we do in fact have just clutch of exemplary precedents: in Venezuela and Argentina, Bitcoin has above average popularity. Even in less drastic cases such as Brazil, there is interest (someone in this thread was making exactly your point, BTC is less volatile proposition than the Brasilean Real).

In fact, Bitcoin's volatility has only seen holders make long term gains. When one considers the full extent to which the price of everyday goods or company shares are manipulated on financial markets (in a so-called capitalist system), it's tempting to say that Bitcoin is one of few (or even the only) traded item that has any real price discovery. So it only appears volatile because we are all too coddled by artificial prices.

And of course, as we know from experience with Bitcoin: what happens when someone manipulates prices? After some time, the market participants figure it out, and the price snaps back, in the opposite direction. Yay price stability.

Edit:

think about that final point.

Your food prices are heavily subsidized, and a part of those huge, growing government debts represent the price you are not paying for your food. That cannot last forever.