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> What’s a digital currency without mining... I take it GP meant mining without gigantic electricity consumption: so not proof-of-stake but proof-of-work > .

> What’s a digital currency without mining... I take it GP meant mining without gigantic electricity consumption: so not proof-of-stake but proof-of-work > ... and how does it differ from regular fiat money today? There was a discussion here a few days ago where people were trying to determine how many swiss bills were circulating... Someone commented on the irony, in a thread hating on cryptocurrencies, that anyone at anytime can know exactly how many, say, Bitcoin or Ethereum do actually exists. There are other difference between government issued money and cryptocurrencies: for example some cryptocurrencies have a fixed, carved in stone, supply curve and so you can know beforehand exactly how many are going to be mined each year. This is quite different, for example, from Venezuela's bolivar: Maduro just announced that 1 000 0000 bolivian bills were going to be printed now.

yardstick 6y ago
> that anyone at anytime can know exactly how many, say, Bitcoin or Ethereum do actually exists. Isn’t there a distinction between issued/minted currency and the amount in circulation? With Bitcoin and physical cash you know how many coins are minted and notes issued etc. But how much of that is in circulation? Does lost physical currency still qualify as in circulation? What about Bitcoin wallets long lost by their owners (such as the British man who keeps wanting a rubbish dump to search for a HDD he threw out years ago, or the person who forgot his password and has 2 attempts left until the wallet self destructs). I don’t think either currency can accurately track the amount in circulation.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The blockchain provides a complete record of the movement of bitcoins. So for a given address, you can see how long value has been there, and the addresses that participated in the send transaction, and so on. You can't from there figure out how many coins are still available for circulation, but you can see how much has moved (or hasn't moved) over any period of time (last day, last week, last year, etc). From there you can define circulation statistics, like 'value that hasn't moved in 3 years' or whatever. For paper money, the fraction that gets destroyed is probably small enough to not matter.
- gruez 6y ago
  >physical cash you know how many coins are minted and notes issued etc. but with coins/cash the actual circulation can exceed what the government claims to have issued, through counterfeits or malfeasance (ie. the government under-reporting the issuance).
petre 6y ago
There are cryptocurrencies with inflation like PeerCoin. Unfortunately it's also mined.
- ChainOfFools 6y ago
  the network is also barely functional these days. resyncing is so slow its hardly worth running a node. oh also pretty sure PPC is proof of stake, it was the first widely traded (maybe first, period?) crypto to implement PoS.

yardstick 6y ago

> that anyone at anytime can know exactly how many, say, Bitcoin or Ethereum do actually exists. Isn’t there a distinction between issued/minted currency and the amount in circulation? With Bitcoin and physical cash you know how many coins are minted and notes issued etc. But how much of that is in circulation? Does lost physical currency still qualify as in circulation? What about Bitcoin wallets long lost by their owners (such as the British man who keeps wanting a rubbish dump to search for a HDD he threw out years ago, or the person who forgot his password and has 2 attempts left until the wallet self destructs). I don’t think either currency can accurately track the amount in circulation.

maxerickson 6y ago
The blockchain provides a complete record of the movement of bitcoins. So for a given address, you can see how long value has been there, and the addresses that participated in the send transaction, and so on. You can't from there figure out how many coins are still available for circulation, but you can see how much has moved (or hasn't moved) over any period of time (last day, last week, last year, etc). From there you can define circulation statistics, like 'value that hasn't moved in 3 years' or whatever. For paper money, the fraction that gets destroyed is probably small enough to not matter.
gruez 6y ago
>physical cash you know how many coins are minted and notes issued etc. but with coins/cash the actual circulation can exceed what the government claims to have issued, through counterfeits or malfeasance (ie. the government under-reporting the issuance).

petre 6y ago

There are cryptocurrencies with inflation like PeerCoin. Unfortunately it's also mined.

ChainOfFools 6y ago
the network is also barely functional these days. resyncing is so slow its hardly worth running a node. oh also pretty sure PPC is proof of stake, it was the first widely traded (maybe first, period?) crypto to implement PoS.