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A lot of this presumes a scenario in which Bitcoin replaces fiat and become the world's sole currency. It's hard to imagine why that would happen. What we seem

A lot of this presumes a scenario in which Bitcoin replaces fiat and become the world's sole currency. It's hard to imagine why that would happen. What we seem to actually be getting is multiple cryptocurrencies, in addition to fiat. Under these conditions, if the world falls into depression, where money is too scarce, then an easy solution is to launch new currencies. On blockchains that support smart contracts, this would be easy to do. If Hayek was on the right track with his advocacy of competing currencies, this could be a more stable system than we have now. Easy deployment of local currencies could also help support local businesses over large monopolies.

vkou 6y ago
"Money is too scarce" is not ever going to be a problem. If the monenatry supply, as a multiple of the economy is experiencing contraction, central banks can always print more. Bitcoin, in this sense, is once again solving a problem that nobody has.
- DennisP 6y ago
  Bitcoin is not trying to solve that problem. The article is claiming that Bitcoin would have that problem, if it were to take over the world from fiat. My claim is that this is false, because there can be more than one cryptocurrency.
udue73uru 6y ago
I think it's much more likely that the desirable properties of crypto-currencies will be baked into government issued psudo-coins that retain the desirable parts of bitcoin while discarding the inconvenient parts. The only people who hate on fiat money are people who don't understand why backed currencies suck or why it would be bad if every country used the same currency. What doesn't suck though is money that essentially tracks itself and baking that self-tracking feature into an existing fiat currency via some kind of pseudo-coin would make regulatory enforcement wildly easier without the downsides of a backed currency.

vkou 6y ago

"Money is too scarce" is not ever going to be a problem. If the monenatry supply, as a multiple of the economy is experiencing contraction, central banks can always print more. Bitcoin, in this sense, is once again solving a problem that nobody has.

DennisP 6y ago
Bitcoin is not trying to solve that problem. The article is claiming that Bitcoin would have that problem, if it were to take over the world from fiat. My claim is that this is false, because there can be more than one cryptocurrency.

udue73uru 6y ago

I think it's much more likely that the desirable properties of crypto-currencies will be baked into government issued psudo-coins that retain the desirable parts of bitcoin while discarding the inconvenient parts. The only people who hate on fiat money are people who don't understand why backed currencies suck or why it would be bad if every country used the same currency. What doesn't suck though is money that essentially tracks itself and baking that self-tracking feature into an existing fiat currency via some kind of pseudo-coin would make regulatory enforcement wildly easier without the downsides of a backed currency.