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But cryptocurrencies were designed to be deflationary which makes them shitty currencies. There's no point in spending a cryptocoin today when its value will be

But cryptocurrencies were designed to be deflationary which makes them shitty currencies. There's no point in spending a cryptocoin today when its value will be higher tomorrow.

jonkho 3y ago
But fiat currencies were designed to be inflationary which makes them shitty store of value. There is no point in saving in fiat today when it’s value will be lower tomorrow.
- orwin 3y ago
  Exactly, working as intended. You want people to hold real assets, not imaginary ones like a currency, because you want people to be invested in your economy. The only intrinsic value a currency have is taxation.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Currencies aren't supposed to be a good store of value, just a predictable store of value. Investments are supposed to be good stores of value. The government very much does not want people hoarding currency.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  We don't want people just stuffing dollars in a mattress. That doesn't help either themselves or anyone else. So we encourage putting dollars/currency into interest bearing vehicles or real assets. We don't want dollars to sit in hoards. We want them to circulate. If I can be without access to dollars for a while I can loan them to you for some enterprise. Then you pay me back more than I loaned you (and more than inflation we hope) because your enterprise created additional value. If my excess money circulates I benefit from access to the things that money is used to build in addition to the interest I receive. Since I'm not a medieval landed noble my economic value isn't measured by the productivity of the serfs on my land holdings.
tromp 3y ago
Most cryptocurrencies were designed that way, but some have a so-called tail emission making them disinflationary. One even has a completely linear emission of 1 coin per second forever since launch.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  That doesn't help because inflation needs to be in tune with the economy, so somebody has to be able to adjust the amount. If the tail emission is too small then it's still deflationary. If it's too big, then there's too much inflation. To adjust properly there has to be somebody who decides what "in tune" is. We're either back to centralization, or it's some sort of popularity vote which is unlikely to produce the right result.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    It might be possible to have it self-tune to transaction volume, no?
    - dale_glass 3y ago
      It's not about the volume, but about the economy though. If somebody keeps sending coins back and forth between their own wallets, that's not economical activity.
      - aidenn0 3y ago
        Assuming there is a charge for transfers, that sets a minimum bound on the expected global utility of a given transfer, the sum of which, would intuitively be correlated with the size of the economy.

But cryptocurrencies were designed to be deflationary which makes them shitty currencies. There's no point in spending a cryptocoin today when its value will be higher tomorrow.

jonkho 3y ago

But fiat currencies were designed to be inflationary which makes them shitty store of value. There is no point in saving in fiat today when it’s value will be lower tomorrow.

orwin 3y ago
Exactly, working as intended. You want people to hold real assets, not imaginary ones like a currency, because you want people to be invested in your economy. The only intrinsic value a currency have is taxation.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Currencies aren't supposed to be a good store of value, just a predictable store of value. Investments are supposed to be good stores of value. The government very much does not want people hoarding currency.
giantrobot 3y ago
We don't want people just stuffing dollars in a mattress. That doesn't help either themselves or anyone else. So we encourage putting dollars/currency into interest bearing vehicles or real assets. We don't want dollars to sit in hoards. We want them to circulate. If I can be without access to dollars for a while I can loan them to you for some enterprise. Then you pay me back more than I loaned you (and more than inflation we hope) because your enterprise created additional value. If my excess money circulates I benefit from access to the things that money is used to build in addition to the interest I receive. Since I'm not a medieval landed noble my economic value isn't measured by the productivity of the serfs on my land holdings.

tromp 3y ago

Most cryptocurrencies were designed that way, but some have a so-called tail emission making them disinflationary. One even has a completely linear emission of 1 coin per second forever since launch.

dale_glass 3y ago
That doesn't help because inflation needs to be in tune with the economy, so somebody has to be able to adjust the amount. If the tail emission is too small then it's still deflationary. If it's too big, then there's too much inflation. To adjust properly there has to be somebody who decides what "in tune" is. We're either back to centralization, or it's some sort of popularity vote which is unlikely to produce the right result.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  It might be possible to have it self-tune to transaction volume, no?
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    It's not about the volume, but about the economy though. If somebody keeps sending coins back and forth between their own wallets, that's not economical activity.
    - aidenn0 3y ago
      Assuming there is a charge for transfers, that sets a minimum bound on the expected global utility of a given transfer, the sum of which, would intuitively be correlated with the size of the economy.