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There is a finite amount of gold on the planet as well, and in all of human history we've only mined something like $7-8 trillion dollars worth. That's only ha

There is a finite amount of gold on the planet as well, and in all of human history we've only mined something like $7-8 trillion dollars worth. That's only half the GDP of the entire U.S. for 2009, and we don't even control most of it (something like 12-15% in various reserves). Look at the price of gold now, it's over $1,000 an ounce. Either the USD has inflated dramatically since 1970 when an ounce of gold was only worth $40, or gold has skyrocketed because of scarcity (or both). Point being, bitcoins could very well end up being worth $10 or even $100 each as the years go by, or higher. At a factor of 100 that's $2.1 billion USD worth of bitcoins. Are they worth that much? Maybe, gold and USD aren't worth anything at all until someone is willing to accept them in trade, and people are definitely accepting bitcoins in trade right now.

CoffeeDregs 16y ago
Fair points. I guess I would be paying 0.001 ounce of gold for a candy bar, so why be concerned about paying 0.001 bitcoin. w.r.t. worth: gold is backed by being shiny, pretty, desirable; USD is backed by the US Government (cue cries of "fiat money! fiat money!") which provides huge implicit inertia; Bitcoins would be backed only by inertia. I guess the answer to my question is: Bitcoins will be interesting if they get transaction inertia. Of course, as an entrepreneurial minded fellow, the next question would be: would it make sense to help build that inertia?
- seabee 16y ago
  From the Bitcoin FAQ: How divisible are Bitcoins? Technically, a Bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, so 0.00000001 BTC is the smallest possible amount. For convenience, the program currently accepts only 2 decimal places.