Re: Why Bitcoin is ultimately doomed to fail (not today or tomorrow)
They say that right now there are about 12 million bitcoins in total, some part of which stashed away. Eventually the production of new coins will stop, so only around 21 million of them will be available, and no more... Now, what will happen next if it ever comes to that, and Bitcoin is finally accepted as a legal tender?
I think that nothing life-changing is actually going to happen. We have already been there. And by there I mean a time period in the 19th century, commonly referred to as a Free Banking Era, when banks could issue bank notes against specie (gold and silver coins). It was during those times when the term inflation began entering into widespread usage and emerging in literature, though not as a reference to price changes but as something pointing to disproportions between paper representing money and the amount of specie actually available in the bank
So, this time instead of gold, we will have Bitcoin (which will be hoarded as per Gresham's law), and all kinds of "paper" derivatives inevitably entering the circulation as a means of exchange. These "papers" allegedly backed up by Bitcoin will in fact leave behind them only inflation, even despite Bitcoin intrinsic deflationary nature...
And welcome back to fiat!
I think that nothing life-changing is actually going to happen. We have already been there. And by there I mean a time period in the 19th century, commonly referred to as a Free Banking Era, when banks could issue bank notes against specie (gold and silver coins). It was during those times when the term inflation began entering into widespread usage and emerging in literature, though not as a reference to price changes but as something pointing to disproportions between paper representing money and the amount of specie actually available in the bank
So, this time instead of gold, we will have Bitcoin (which will be hoarded as per Gresham's law), and all kinds of "paper" derivatives inevitably entering the circulation as a means of exchange. These "papers" allegedly backed up by Bitcoin will in fact leave behind them only inflation, even despite Bitcoin intrinsic deflationary nature...
And welcome back to fiat!
Good point.
The thing is, people have to accept this derivate as a mean of exchange. If we continue to trade bitcoins and only bitcoins, we won't have that problem. Thus, the whole idea is about not having a third party, such as banks.
In this case we will inevitably run into a deflationary circle which is not much of a problem in an expanding economy with the labor productivity quickly growing, but as soon as the economy begins to slow down, we will have a whole bunch of problems multiplying...
