> But you can remove a small portion of the gold so that the trade is fair. You wouldn't do that. If you had a good coin and cut a piece to pay for a small am

> But you can remove a small portion of the gold so that the trade is fair. You wouldn't do that. If you had a good coin and cut a piece to pay for a small amount you'd lose value - you can't immediately the fineness of unminted gold, and your merchant knows it, and you'd end up with a bad coin, the weight of which is not immediately clear. This is why most all cultures evolved to use coins. There was also a flourishing credit economy, because the smallest coin that a merchant would take was something like the weekly wages of a labourer, and this credit economy was what smoothed out fluctuations in this otherwise deflationary environment. I guess that's what Bitcoin is missing.