Quote from: MikeH on February 18, 2014, 07:33:30 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on February 18, 2014, 06:40:44 AM

Accordingly, capitalism works by exploiting people and creating an incentive for people to work. For example, if any schmuck can get a bitcoin (or fraction of a bitcoin) when he is a baby (and then stashes it away), then he would never have to work a day in his life by the time he is 18 years old.

Maybe I am being too narrow minded to think that way, but compounding interest is a powerful thing and if BTC is guaranteed to go up every year by even as little as 10-15% (and those are conservative numbers based on the supply issue and I would think that the guaranteed price increase would be greater than 15% annually). BTC would change the whole dynamics of the world and incentives for labor......

why do you think it's deflationary? the price is currently rising with adoption and confidence and by the time bitcoins stop being created we should be at peak adoption, there may be a bit of deflation through coin loss but by then we may also see population decrease if 3rd world countries are brought up to 1st world level where birth rates have fallen below the replacement rate.

I may be using the wrong term... but deflationary, means exactly that the currency buys more with the passage of time compared with goods and services. So let's say a kid is born in 2020 and his parents invest 1 bitcoin into a stored wallet. At that point, the bitcoin is equal to the equivalence of $10,000 in today's dollars. Even if the value of the bitcoin goes up by 15% per year (which I believe is fairly modest), then in 20 years that bitcoin would be worth about $200,000 and in 30 years, $900K.

Quote from: MikeH on February 18, 2014, 07:33:30 AM

oh and why focus on it as a currency anyway, if used in parallel to other currencies as a payment method the price and volatility don't really matter.

I am NOT concerned about volatility.... I am just making a point about the issue of the deflationary aspect of the asset.. whether it is a currency or a commodity or just a storage of value.