[Alain-lf]

Edit:

After rereading the article, I now understand that you were referring to this quote in the article : "The circulation number is not enough".

You are right, the fact that it's divisible render this point moot. I thought you were saying that dividing coins somehow decreased scarcity (Yes, I've seen many people argue that, believe it or not).

Original comment below :

I find it really mind boggling that some people don't understand that dividing a pizza into 100M pieces does not give you more pizza.

[analog31]

But George Carlin pointed out that if you break a crumb in half, you get two crumbs.

[paulpauper]

like a magnet

[eloff]

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Yeah subdivision doesn't affect scarcity. The arguments the article made were weak, but there are plenty of solid arguments to be made.

[eloff]

That's the wrong way to think about it.

The number only matters as long as it can subdivided sufficiently to buy the smallest priced thing.

You're thinking of it as a fixed sized pie and thinking dividing it doesn't make a bigger pie. But it's not fixed, the whole pie can grow as bitcoin increases in value. It's up to one trillion dollars now.

[542458]

There being a cap is relevant, because it makes your currency deflationary and therefore a poor medium for exchange and a very poor medium to base an economy around (as, among other things, it increases the real value of a debt over time and discourages investment). Small amount of deflation are dangerous - but if everybody used BTC for everything the deflation would be massive and the effects severe.

[tablespoon]

> The number only matters as long as it can subdivided sufficiently to buy the smallest priced thing.

Why would I even buy the smallest priced thing with deflationary bitcoin, when I could instead hoard it and wait for it to increase in value?

I think most people who have ever used bitcoin as a medium of exchange have kicked themselves when they realized how expensive that thing they bought was at current (very high) exchange rates.

[Alain-lf]

I think you misunderstood my point.

I'm not saying the price can't increase, I'm saying that dividing coins does not reduce scarcity.

Edit: Updated my original comment, turns out I'm the one who misunderstood your point. We actually agree.

[pjc50]

> It's up to one trillion dollars now.

This sounds sustainable. /s