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> Sure, but that's true of everything. The dollar is still worth one dollar, too. It's not. [1] > But we still say that the dollar is losing value to inflatio

> Sure, but that's true of everything. The dollar is still worth one dollar, too. It's not. [1] > But we still say that the dollar is losing value to inflation, and we experience it every time we try to buy something else with dollars. (Buying dollars with dollars is rather pointless.) And I'm pretty sure you know all that, and the parent post was just an attempt at a deflection. No, the dollar loses value to inflation because the supply of money continues to increase, therefore making an individual dollar less valuable (value of currency is drive by scarcity). The supply of Bitcoin is fixed, and therefore, anti-inflationary. --- The price in X currency is whatever that market is willing to pay for Bitcoin, but that doesn't change the value of it. It's identical to the stock market. The stock market price of a company is not the book value of a company. Ironically, the money printing is what creates and worsens that disconnect as companies do stock buy backs with printed, un-backed dollars, artificially increasing their stock price. [1] See "Buying Power of $1 over time, 1800-2022" here: https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1 https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1800?amount=1

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
The value of a dollar, as measured in dollars, has not changed. The buying power has. This is exactly the same as Bitcoin, which is why your "1 Bitcoin is still worth 1 Bitcoin" line is meaningless. We don't care about the value of anything as measured by itself. We only care about the value as measured by other things - that is, the purchasing power. Well, the purchasing power of Bitcoin tanked over the last year. (We don't care about the absolute number of the thing, either, so your "supply of dollars is increasing" argument is also irrelevant. Though I will give you that the increase in the supply of dollars faster than the supply of things for dollars to buy causes inflation.)
- rglover 4y ago
  > We only care about the value as measured by other things - that is, the purchasing power. You just contradicted yourself, then. > Well, the purchasing power of Bitcoin tanked over the last year. It didn't. The purchasing power relative to other currencies did. If your goal is to just use Bitcoin as a way to make more dollars, then sure, you lost something. If your goal (like my own) is to store your wealth in a way that can't be manipulated or confiscated, then you didn't lose any purchasing power. It's an abstract argument and I understand exactly the point you're making, but ultimately, Bitcoin's inherent value is unchanged (1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 Satoshi).

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

The value of a dollar, as measured in dollars, has not changed. The buying power has. This is exactly the same as Bitcoin, which is why your "1 Bitcoin is still worth 1 Bitcoin" line is meaningless. We don't care about the value of anything as measured by itself. We only care about the value as measured by other things - that is, the purchasing power. Well, the purchasing power of Bitcoin tanked over the last year. (We don't care about the absolute number of the thing, either, so your "supply of dollars is increasing" argument is also irrelevant. Though I will give you that the increase in the supply of dollars faster than the supply of things for dollars to buy causes inflation.)

rglover 4y ago
> We only care about the value as measured by other things - that is, the purchasing power. You just contradicted yourself, then. > Well, the purchasing power of Bitcoin tanked over the last year. It didn't. The purchasing power relative to other currencies did. If your goal is to just use Bitcoin as a way to make more dollars, then sure, you lost something. If your goal (like my own) is to store your wealth in a way that can't be manipulated or confiscated, then you didn't lose any purchasing power. It's an abstract argument and I understand exactly the point you're making, but ultimately, Bitcoin's inherent value is unchanged (1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 Satoshi).