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Serious answer: The supply of the digital currency. For euro/dollars that supply is dictated by a handful of individuals. For Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Serious answer: The supply of the digital currency. For euro/dollars that supply is dictated by a handful of individuals. For Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, that supply is dictated by code and consensus that anybody can participate in.

tsimionescu 5y ago
> For euro/dollars that supply is dictated by a handful of individuals. The supply is dictated by the country's government (or a complex web of governments and the EU, in the case of the euro), which is ultimately controlled by the people who live in that country, at least to some extent. If the US government and the Fed decided to issue 100 new trillion dollars tomorrow, devaluing everyone's money, there would be rioting in the streets. The politicians who participated or allowed it to happen would never see office again. In contrast, the supply of Bitcoin is dictated by the programmers that actually do the work of writing the node software, in collaboration with the largest miners. Currently I believe they are respecting the protocol laid out by Satoshi, but they are free do decide to do otherwise at some point in the future. If they decided to issue new Bitcoin, Bitcoin may or may not collapse, but they would face no personal repercussions. So I would say I personally, and I believe you as well, have a much bigger (though minuscule, of course) say about the supply of euro/dollars than we do in the supply of Bitcoin.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  To your first point, they haven’t gone to 100 trillion at a time yet but we sure look like we are getting there. To your second point, there are other parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem besides miners and developers that have a say in which version of the code ends up being run. It isn’t as simple as largest miners and it definitely isn’t as simple as issuing new Bitcoin without facing personal repercussions. Look into the block size debate to see how contentious any changes to the core protocol actually are and which players actually made a difference. Let’s agree to agree. The average person has minuscule impact on their chosen money’s supply. To quantify which one would take more impact by the Average Joe in this day and age is going to have to be judged by history in decades - not by us now.

tsimionescu 5y ago

> For euro/dollars that supply is dictated by a handful of individuals. The supply is dictated by the country's government (or a complex web of governments and the EU, in the case of the euro), which is ultimately controlled by the people who live in that country, at least to some extent. If the US government and the Fed decided to issue 100 new trillion dollars tomorrow, devaluing everyone's money, there would be rioting in the streets. The politicians who participated or allowed it to happen would never see office again. In contrast, the supply of Bitcoin is dictated by the programmers that actually do the work of writing the node software, in collaboration with the largest miners. Currently I believe they are respecting the protocol laid out by Satoshi, but they are free do decide to do otherwise at some point in the future. If they decided to issue new Bitcoin, Bitcoin may or may not collapse, but they would face no personal repercussions. So I would say I personally, and I believe you as well, have a much bigger (though minuscule, of course) say about the supply of euro/dollars than we do in the supply of Bitcoin.

bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
To your first point, they haven’t gone to 100 trillion at a time yet but we sure look like we are getting there. To your second point, there are other parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem besides miners and developers that have a say in which version of the code ends up being run. It isn’t as simple as largest miners and it definitely isn’t as simple as issuing new Bitcoin without facing personal repercussions. Look into the block size debate to see how contentious any changes to the core protocol actually are and which players actually made a difference. Let’s agree to agree. The average person has minuscule impact on their chosen money’s supply. To quantify which one would take more impact by the Average Joe in this day and age is going to have to be judged by history in decades - not by us now.