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>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

>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.

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.