[bitreality]

Bitcoin is the first successful project which achieved digital scarcity. Scarcity is one of the most important features in assigning value to a particular object. Bitcoin's scarcity is not only proven, but also completely transparent and trackable. Its scarcity does not rely on any centralized organization, it is completely based on mathematics and cryptography.

It may not have been apparent how ground-breaking or important digital scarcity was at the time. Most of the time when we think of money, we think about how we use it in our everyday lives. We buy coffees, we pay for an Uber. But underneath all that, there is a deeper meaning to money. Why do we value money? It really just boils down to scarcity, liquidity, demand.

Money has all 3. However, the scarcity factor of traditional money is flawed. It relies on centralized parties, for which money is not actually scarce. They can and do alter the supply at any time. It's a tradeoff we make because fiat is so liquid / demanded / transactable.

Bitcoin is less transactable than fiat money in most regards, but it makes up for it in the transparency of its scarcity. If you were going to lock your wealth up for 25 years, would you put it in USD or BTC? More and more people would say BTC. I can tell you how many BTC will exist in the year 2050. I would have no way to do the same for any fiat currency.

The main risk to BTC is some sort of technological breakthrough which greatly improves upon the concept of cryptocurrency. It's not that cryptocurrency will suddenly disappear or lose its value. Cryptocurrency is here to stay. We have witnessed the birth of a new asset class.

[sokoloff]

It seems to me there’s a higher possibility for the practical number of BTC in 2050 to be zero than for the practical amount of USD in circulation to be zero.

[ngcc_hk]

You are right but I wonder whether the usual economic argument would give a deep question. Why money exist? It is not because of those alone. It is all tried to solve the time uncertainty issue. You point out the problem of using government and here only the technology is the risk it seemed. It tried to solve the general time uncertainty issue.

But uncertainty has many types. The other digital currency tried to handle eg contract uncertainty. Bitcoin tried to solve the general one and hence it is used as an anchor. The original article pointed that out.

The gold is another possible Gov independent solution. Problem is it is too good in that. Save digging more gold or nuclear transmutation (per Newton effort?) is feasible using say solar, real scarcity is achieved. But it was opted out as it is not human manageable. Instead we have weapon based forced option of US dollars. Japan, euro now Rmb ... we are in a different regime for a reason.

The scarcity cannot be enforced like US dollars and is more like gold. Hence it is not weapon backed and it is not flexible scarcity. It might not be useful in our current environment.

You may think that is the whole point of asset not centrally controlled. But then we back to uncertainty over time which we as a human group cannot manage. How to control which to opt for a as Bitcoin is just a commodity subject to demand even if it is supply constrained.

Whilst so far another clone is not successful still it could be. If it threaten certain government it can block the cash chain. Who guarantee that.

Also, there is no issue within that is breakable by say quantum computing like cloning the whole tree say ...

The time dimension always meant there could not be one money or asset as it has to be tailored to individual human and human group.

Money is a contract with the future to handle uncertainty. Supply constrain is only one of the feature of Bitcoin. It may not be sufficient to be a good money supply. We will see or wait to the stage when mining is only for transaction and supply and demand react.