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Even if we assume only Bitcoin, it's not currently expected to stop printing money until (assuming Ray Kurzweil wasn't right all along) long after we're all dea

Even if we assume only Bitcoin, it's not currently expected to stop printing money until (assuming Ray Kurzweil wasn't right all along) long after we're all dead. The Bitcoin inflation story is more political than simply economic. Right now, it's not really possible for it to be narrowly about whether printing money is OK. But one could easily mount an argument about whether humans should be able to twiddle with the money printing policy.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It is supremely ironic that we’re supposed to believe that the best way to escape money printing is to buy a cryptocurrency that was invented out of thin air, which is continuously mined (during most of our lifetimes) out of thin air by doing useless calculations. Or even worse, a basket of multiple crypto currencies, where the number of available crypto currencies and crypto assets grows larger every day.
- dasudasu 6y ago
  It’s not really surprising when anyone pushing crypto to you also happen to hold a lot of crypto. It’s self-serving advice 100% of the time. It’s pretty much a staple also to call every other crypto you don’t hold a fraud trying to steal the spotlight.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    While it may well be self-serving, this is also a near tautological statement, as you'd expect someone who pushes crypto to also hold a lot of crypto if they genuinely believe in it - whether for sound reasons or not. As such the fact they're holding crypto tells us nothing about whether they're pushing it because they're holding it or pushing it because they believe in it.
- silexia 6y ago
  I saw a great comment earlier, "Buying bitcoin to hedge against inflation is like buying lotto tickets to hedge against Apple stock declines."
  - heliodor 6y ago
    That makes no sense. Lotto tickets have an expiration date. No value fluctuation over time. At expiry, they're worth X or zero. How is that like Bitcoin?
    - mumblemumble 6y ago
      You're maybe stretching the analogy way beyond what was intended. The intended analogy, I'm guessing, is that both lottery tickets and BTC seem to be uncorrelated with USD. A good hedge is something that is inversely correlated with the thing you're trying to hedge against.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  BTC has been the #1 asset over the last 10 years. In many individual years it has out performed every other asset. It has this year by a large amount. At some point the dissenters will have to admit they were wrong. The reality is, BTC is here to stay and is a valuable hedge that is independent of any corporation, government, or central bank.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    What does it mean to be wrong? Should I have mined 1000 coins in my CPU a decade ago? Duh. Does that mean that BTC is a useful financial hedge against inflation? Why would it? BTC went up by a factor of a gazillion during a decade when USD inflation was not out of the ordinary. Clearly something other than "inflation hedge" is driving the price.
    - nemo44x 6y ago
      What it means is pundits have spared no opportunity to ridicule anyone who has invested their money in BTC, pontificated that BTC has no value, that it is a fad, that it is a bubble, etc. For 10 years. At some point don't they have to capitulate from that provenly wrong position and at least admit there's something there? What is driving the price is price discovery. More people are becoming comfortable with it as an asset as the FUD described above has continued to be debunked. As more people become comfortable that drives demand which increases the value. As a hedge against inflation it works for a number of reasons. People generally price it in dollars, like stocks or real estate. As the dollar inflates one would assume the value of BTC would increase as investors have more dollars to invest into it, driving demand. But the "something other" is more and more people agreeing it has value and therefore creating more demand for it and therefore creating higher prices. This is how any asset works.
      - andresp 6y ago
        I think people don't really agree it has that much value. People want to get rich quickly. They always have done that and continue to do so. Casinos and lotteries are older than bitcoin. The idea that BTC goes above 50k USD because millions of people believe its intrinsic value is worth that much is a story that BTC investors tell themselves before going to sleep. Reality is much greedier than that, and they know it, but the narrative won't change while the fairy tale continues to be profitable.
erwan 6y ago
You can inflate the money supply and still be "deflationary" if the convenience yield of holding the money (tokens, UTXOs, or whatnot) exceeds or neutralize that inflation rate. You make an excellent point, Bitcoin doesn't have to overtake gold or become a global-reserve to change the world. It just has to be a plausible alternative that enables people to opt-in or out of the system. It has largely already achieved that and I'm hopeful for a future of monetary pluralism.
- redblacktree 6y ago
  > I'm hopeful for a future of monetary pluralism. My big concern about monetary pluralism is what happens to US citizens, when their day-to-day currency stops being used as the reserve currency for the world? I have trouble imagining any way in which that turns out good for me, as someone living and working in the US. Anything you can do to assuage my fears, since you seem to be educated on the matter?
  - spiralx 6y ago
    For one the USD is only the largest reserve currency used internationally: GBP, EUR and JPY are also used as reserve currencies. For another the US has been trying to reduce the role of the dollar as a reserve currency because it actually has significant downsides and fewer benefits than is popularly portrayed - this even has it's own term, "exorbitant privilege". Here's Ben Bernanke talking about it: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-d... TL;DR: the USD's reserve currency status is very much exaggerated.
    - redblacktree 6y ago
      Thank you, that was interesting reading. Not sure why you were downvoted.
      - spiralx 6y ago
        No problem, this is another article on the subject I'd bookmarked: https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/the-reserve-currency-myth-the-us-dollars-current-and-future-role-in-the-world-economy https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/the-reserve-currency-myth-t...
jessriedel 6y ago
>18.5M of bitcoin has already been mined of the maximum 21M. So the amount of remaining future inflation from increased supply negligible. That the remaining 2M will be mined asymptotically over many years is not important except for purposes of incentivizing miners to run transactions.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  It's not that negligible. At current reward of 6.25BTC, that means that the rate at which new BTC are being minted, as a percentage of total BTC supply, is about 3 times the (admittedly unusually low) current US inflation rate. You're right, though, it will become negligible at some point in the not-too-distant future. I think, though, that that may not be all that relevant. The arguments about BTC and money printing seem to be more moral than pragmatic, so I'm not sure you can really draw a line and say, "Below this mark, printing money is A-OK. Above this mark, printing money is the end of the world," because trying to move to that style of argument would be moving the goalpost right out of the stadium. It was never about the actual pragmatics of inflationary currency policy. By analogy, I'm not sure a lot of dyed-in-the-wool gold bugs would respond to the hypothetical opening of a massive new gold mine by saying, "An increase in the production rate? That, I just cannot do," and walking away from gold. If, on the other hand, the mine were opening in their own country, and being operated by the government, which planned to carefully release gold onto the market at a slow rate, then you might see a lot of protesting. That would actually be better for price stability, but price stability was never actually the point.
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    That's mostly fair, but worth noting that insofar as Bitcoin is mined on a schedule the inflation can be priced into the current price, so it's less deceptive than when the government suddenly prints a ton of bills and whoever was unlucky enough to be cash flush at the time takes a big haircut in purchasing power.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

It is supremely ironic that we’re supposed to believe that the best way to escape money printing is to buy a cryptocurrency that was invented out of thin air, which is continuously mined (during most of our lifetimes) out of thin air by doing useless calculations. Or even worse, a basket of multiple crypto currencies, where the number of available crypto currencies and crypto assets grows larger every day.

dasudasu 6y ago
It’s not really surprising when anyone pushing crypto to you also happen to hold a lot of crypto. It’s self-serving advice 100% of the time. It’s pretty much a staple also to call every other crypto you don’t hold a fraud trying to steal the spotlight.
- vidarh 6y ago
  While it may well be self-serving, this is also a near tautological statement, as you'd expect someone who pushes crypto to also hold a lot of crypto if they genuinely believe in it - whether for sound reasons or not. As such the fact they're holding crypto tells us nothing about whether they're pushing it because they're holding it or pushing it because they believe in it.
silexia 6y ago
I saw a great comment earlier, "Buying bitcoin to hedge against inflation is like buying lotto tickets to hedge against Apple stock declines."
- heliodor 6y ago
  That makes no sense. Lotto tickets have an expiration date. No value fluctuation over time. At expiry, they're worth X or zero. How is that like Bitcoin?
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    You're maybe stretching the analogy way beyond what was intended. The intended analogy, I'm guessing, is that both lottery tickets and BTC seem to be uncorrelated with USD. A good hedge is something that is inversely correlated with the thing you're trying to hedge against.
nemo44x 6y ago
BTC has been the #1 asset over the last 10 years. In many individual years it has out performed every other asset. It has this year by a large amount. At some point the dissenters will have to admit they were wrong. The reality is, BTC is here to stay and is a valuable hedge that is independent of any corporation, government, or central bank.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  What does it mean to be wrong? Should I have mined 1000 coins in my CPU a decade ago? Duh. Does that mean that BTC is a useful financial hedge against inflation? Why would it? BTC went up by a factor of a gazillion during a decade when USD inflation was not out of the ordinary. Clearly something other than "inflation hedge" is driving the price.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    What it means is pundits have spared no opportunity to ridicule anyone who has invested their money in BTC, pontificated that BTC has no value, that it is a fad, that it is a bubble, etc. For 10 years. At some point don't they have to capitulate from that provenly wrong position and at least admit there's something there? What is driving the price is price discovery. More people are becoming comfortable with it as an asset as the FUD described above has continued to be debunked. As more people become comfortable that drives demand which increases the value. As a hedge against inflation it works for a number of reasons. People generally price it in dollars, like stocks or real estate. As the dollar inflates one would assume the value of BTC would increase as investors have more dollars to invest into it, driving demand. But the "something other" is more and more people agreeing it has value and therefore creating more demand for it and therefore creating higher prices. This is how any asset works.
    - andresp 6y ago
      I think people don't really agree it has that much value. People want to get rich quickly. They always have done that and continue to do so. Casinos and lotteries are older than bitcoin. The idea that BTC goes above 50k USD because millions of people believe its intrinsic value is worth that much is a story that BTC investors tell themselves before going to sleep. Reality is much greedier than that, and they know it, but the narrative won't change while the fairy tale continues to be profitable.

erwan 6y ago

You can inflate the money supply and still be "deflationary" if the convenience yield of holding the money (tokens, UTXOs, or whatnot) exceeds or neutralize that inflation rate. You make an excellent point, Bitcoin doesn't have to overtake gold or become a global-reserve to change the world. It just has to be a plausible alternative that enables people to opt-in or out of the system. It has largely already achieved that and I'm hopeful for a future of monetary pluralism.

redblacktree 6y ago
> I'm hopeful for a future of monetary pluralism. My big concern about monetary pluralism is what happens to US citizens, when their day-to-day currency stops being used as the reserve currency for the world? I have trouble imagining any way in which that turns out good for me, as someone living and working in the US. Anything you can do to assuage my fears, since you seem to be educated on the matter?
- spiralx 6y ago
  For one the USD is only the largest reserve currency used internationally: GBP, EUR and JPY are also used as reserve currencies. For another the US has been trying to reduce the role of the dollar as a reserve currency because it actually has significant downsides and fewer benefits than is popularly portrayed - this even has it's own term, "exorbitant privilege". Here's Ben Bernanke talking about it: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-d... TL;DR: the USD's reserve currency status is very much exaggerated.
  - redblacktree 6y ago
    Thank you, that was interesting reading. Not sure why you were downvoted.
    - spiralx 6y ago
      No problem, this is another article on the subject I'd bookmarked: https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/the-reserve-currency-myth-the-us-dollars-current-and-future-role-in-the-world-economy https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/the-reserve-currency-myth-t...

jessriedel 6y ago

>18.5M of bitcoin has already been mined of the maximum 21M. So the amount of remaining future inflation from increased supply negligible. That the remaining 2M will be mined asymptotically over many years is not important except for purposes of incentivizing miners to run transactions.

mumblemumble 6y ago
It's not that negligible. At current reward of 6.25BTC, that means that the rate at which new BTC are being minted, as a percentage of total BTC supply, is about 3 times the (admittedly unusually low) current US inflation rate. You're right, though, it will become negligible at some point in the not-too-distant future. I think, though, that that may not be all that relevant. The arguments about BTC and money printing seem to be more moral than pragmatic, so I'm not sure you can really draw a line and say, "Below this mark, printing money is A-OK. Above this mark, printing money is the end of the world," because trying to move to that style of argument would be moving the goalpost right out of the stadium. It was never about the actual pragmatics of inflationary currency policy. By analogy, I'm not sure a lot of dyed-in-the-wool gold bugs would respond to the hypothetical opening of a massive new gold mine by saying, "An increase in the production rate? That, I just cannot do," and walking away from gold. If, on the other hand, the mine were opening in their own country, and being operated by the government, which planned to carefully release gold onto the market at a slow rate, then you might see a lot of protesting. That would actually be better for price stability, but price stability was never actually the point.
- jessriedel 6y ago
  That's mostly fair, but worth noting that insofar as Bitcoin is mined on a schedule the inflation can be priced into the current price, so it's less deceptive than when the government suddenly prints a ton of bills and whoever was unlucky enough to be cash flush at the time takes a big haircut in purchasing power.