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shock-value | 2 years ago

Speaking of Bitcoin specifically, if this is your view then you should take some time to understand the severe societal and economic problems that come with persistent deflation. And more generally, determining the optimal level of the money supply to match the needs of a dynamic economy is not trivial — there is no simple formula involving straightforwardly measurable variables that I am aware of.

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throw101010|2 years ago

Bitcoin is not a deflationary asset yet. It is a disinflationary asset until around year 2140 (with the rate decreasing every ~4 years and trending towards 0, at which point it will be deflationary).

For now its supply still inflates by ~1.7% a year.

Neither you, nor I will live to see that moment when the last bitcoin will be mined (as long as miners keep mining in our lifetime).

Bitcoin exists as an option to a lot of very inflationary assets (currencies which not that long ago almost reached 2 digit inflation rates) and having different kind of assets should be welcomed in my opinion, as it seems like a good way to diversify the risk you can't "straightforwardly measure".

I like to hold at least one asset for which I can almost guarantee a supply/emission won't change... better yet I can trustlessly verify it. If these propositions are not attractive to you or others, they don't have to acquire this asset either, it is completely opt-in, unlike the fiat money which your government forces you to acquire to pay their taxes.

toenail|2 years ago

> And more generally, determining the optimal level of the money supply to match the needs of a dynamic economy is not trivial

No, we don't need some grand wizards in an ivory tower to finely tune the amount of money in the economy, that idea is absurd. The economy has worked fine for thousands of years before they started doing that. In fact, since they started doing it we've seen ever growing boom and bust cycles.

kragen|2 years ago

...there were a lot of boom and bust cycles before the federal reserve

cortesoft|2 years ago

This is the OPPOSITE of the truth. Boom and bust cycles were much worst in the pre-central bank world.

david_shi|2 years ago

Bitcoin and BFT consensus primarily solve the principal-agent problem, and give us a better means to experiment.

Personally, I don't think a deflationary global reserve currency is the precise answer, but I do believe that these experiments in monetary governance (like Ethereum's burn and mint model) will allow us to move closer to it.

lottin|2 years ago

Bitcoin has no governance mechanism for managing the money supply. If it was adopted as money, governments would have to implement some mechanism to manage the bitcoin supply, just like they did under the gold standard. Therefore it doesn't solve any principal-agent problem.

Eliezer|2 years ago

Grow per capita nominal GDP by a 6%/year level target. (NGDPLT.)