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In addition to that, most semi-recent "gold economies" have been of a fairly fictional variety, not literally trading physical gold as the medium of exchange, b

In addition to that, most semi-recent "gold economies" have been of a fairly fictional variety, not literally trading physical gold as the medium of exchange, but rather trading paper money that is theoretically backed by gold, with the theory supposed to be bolstered by the fact that it's exchangeable on demand for gold. But these economies depended on not too many people at once actually demanding the exchange for gold, which is why the American 19th century economy was littered with bank runs. There hasn't been a real test of what a purely "hard money" gold-based economy would look like in centuries. Could turn out well, could not. I would guess not.

gnaritas 13y ago
I agree and I'd say we know not; currencies need to be able to expand to match demand in growing markets, the idea that a fixed supply currency can work as a medium of exchange to represent wealth that is not fixed in supply simply doesn't make sense. A boom in wealth would cause severe depreciation and recession as the currency adjusted to the new amount of wealth it represents; that's just logically a terrible medium of exchange.
- grinnbearit 13y ago
  So who should get access to this newly minted currency? How about we just increase everyone's bank accounts and the price of all dollar denominated assets/goods by a factor of 10, would that solve your problem? Inflation for everybody.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Your first question is a good one, the rest are just absurd and show your lack of seriousness about the discussion.
    - grinnbearit 13y ago
      No, it was a serious question. Have you heard about the MMO Wakfu? They faced a problem a while back where their player base grew faster than the supply of virtual currency. And since the currency was not divisible (integer values only) all low value items were not being traded. They solved this problem by increasing everyones supply and increasing all store prices by a factor of (10?), effectively moving the decimal point. They could have solved it by giving a few players a massive supply of the currency which would have eventually spread out but they chose not to.

gnaritas 13y ago

I agree and I'd say we know not; currencies need to be able to expand to match demand in growing markets, the idea that a fixed supply currency can work as a medium of exchange to represent wealth that is not fixed in supply simply doesn't make sense. A boom in wealth would cause severe depreciation and recession as the currency adjusted to the new amount of wealth it represents; that's just logically a terrible medium of exchange.

grinnbearit 13y ago
So who should get access to this newly minted currency? How about we just increase everyone's bank accounts and the price of all dollar denominated assets/goods by a factor of 10, would that solve your problem? Inflation for everybody.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Your first question is a good one, the rest are just absurd and show your lack of seriousness about the discussion.
  - grinnbearit 13y ago
    No, it was a serious question. Have you heard about the MMO Wakfu? They faced a problem a while back where their player base grew faster than the supply of virtual currency. And since the currency was not divisible (integer values only) all low value items were not being traded. They solved this problem by increasing everyones supply and increasing all store prices by a factor of (10?), effectively moving the decimal point. They could have solved it by giving a few players a massive supply of the currency which would have eventually spread out but they chose not to.