4 ms·
GWP is probably the wrong measure. Instead, take a look at the money supply (m0) [2]. It's the sum of currency in circulation plus money available in demand dep
by chaz 13y ago
GWP is probably the wrong measure. Instead, take a look at the money supply (m0) [2]. It's the sum of currency in circulation plus money available in demand deposits. For Bitcoin, that's essentially the market cap =~ $15 billion. Total m0 for USD is about $3.1 trillion. [1]
[1] http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m0 http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply
- cshimmin 13y agoInteresting point. But as bitcoin adoption (hypothetically) increases, its market cap should approach some significant fraction of m0. And m0 is presumably increasing with time, while the total supply of BC does not. As others pointed out, this can supposedly be relieved by updating the protocol to allow greater divisibility.
- rejschaap 13y agoDidn't Bill Gates say that 21 million bitcoins ought to be enough for everybody?
- nhaehnle 13y agoM0 would work as a comparison only if nobody saved in BTC. If people did save in BTC, you'd need a much broader definition of money supply as comparison, and cshimmin's comparison makes sense. And since that's a common objection: a reserve banking system on top of BTC would at best last two generations due to a lack of a central bank.
- runeks 13y agoIf we use M2, which is like $11t, then Bitcoin seems to be in the same situation as the dollar. $11t is 1100 trillion cents. Bitcoin currently has exactly the same amount of indivisible currency units: 1100 trillion (11,000,000 BTC which are divisible into 100,000,000 units).