ramontayag

To hold, yes you're right. I suspect you're thinking of the storage of value use-case?

It is a way to transfer value. I'm from the Philippines and I'm seeing increasing usage in remittance or getting paid salaries from abroad.

I also get a better feel for what else bitcoin is doing with this podcast episode "Alex Gladstein on Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom" https://pca.st/aQy0

It's actually useful in places that don't have great financial access. I'm guessing your estimate of "very few people" is from a place that has good access?

I think it is solving some man-in-the-street problems for people who aren't in countries with good financial systems.

I see. Thanks for clarifying!

Trust in it to do/be what?

Even if miners could change the rules and print more, do you think the users would continue to use it?

I understand - I'm not aware of an asset class like bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies, so I have to go with opinion and extrapolation for a lot of the thinking. :)

It sounds like what you said is that the singularity may not happen because cryptocurrency deflation will make cryptocurrencies more attractive to hold compared to inflationary fiat. I'm fairly certain I understood it wrong.

Won't people move more of the money into deflationary currencies if they are accessible and exchange friction between the inflationary one and deflationary one is acceptable?

I appreciate the appreciation!

BenoitEssiambre, what are your thoughts on http://woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-will-match-major-fiat-...?

Yes, it may feel volatile, but how volatile is it compared to other currencies? For example, my country's currency fell 10% in the last three months.

Intrinsic value discussion aside (which is its own discussion worth having), I would certainly like to keep more of my money in gold vs my local currency if gold were easy to get and keep. Peter Schiff says goldmoney.com does this, but I'm not interested in owning a certificate.

You bring up a good point though. The closer I imagine ourselves being at the event horizon, the fuzzier the details become. For example, I don't know what "stable enough" is exactly. I guess the question is now, will it ever get close enough to go past the event horizon?

By "effects of deflation", are you referring to the claimed ill-effects of deflation, that will grind the economy to a halt? If so, mind helping me understand why I can't disregard that?

I appreciate your replies - not sure if I mentioned it earlier to you, but I posted it here in HN because there is no shortage of smart people willing to express their thoughts.

I didn't bring it up because I suspect that we'll eventually find a scaling solution, whether it be sidechains, tree chains, riding on Moore's law, multiple cryptocurrencies connected through an interleger.

It's a more long term view of the impact of cryptocurrencies concerning government issued currencies.

This is certainly interesting. Could the same principle be applied to gold which has been fairly stable?

I don't think gold is the right medium for the singularity because it is not easy to obtain and subdivide. It needs to be in the the vicinity of choosing the inflated coin on one hand, and the more valuable coin on the right.

Perhaps it's this trait that will keep Bitcoin volatile? Because it's easy to go in and out of it, volatility will remain high?

The interesting part for me is the more people speculate, the higher the price becomes, and the higher the price becomes, the more useful it is in the institutional level because the markets are deeper.

Thank you! I knew I was just lacking in Google-fu when searching for other articles that expressed this idea I had been forming in my mind.

Thanks for the link. I'm not sure where in the article I said inflation is worse than deflation. I don't feel I know enough about economics to express an opinion about this.

What I'm trying to say is that if people have a choice, they'll keep their wealth in a currency that destroys their wealth the least slowly. This, I suspect, will have a runaway effect. We probably wouldn't be able to stop it if we tried, which sounds a lot like the AI singularity.

That would be interesting!

Yes, I certainly can't say I'm an economics expert. Mind sharing with me what part of the article you think is misguided?

If I read this comment right, I agree with you. People will use inflationary currencies more because they aren't as good as a store of value.

Yes, you're right to bring up confirmation times and community. I didn't include that on purpose in order to focus on the good vs bad money part. My hunch is the scaling issues will (eventually) get addressed when we hit the barriers. Might not even be Bitcoin.

I did send the article to my old economics professor so he can tell me where I misunderstand things, but I haven't gotten a reply yet. ️

If I understand this right, I don't think I necessarily disagree with you. My question is: if people can choose one or the other to spend, what do you think they'll choose? A currency that inflates quickly, or one that inflates less quickly?

I certainly may well be confused. I don't have an economics degree and just find the field fascinating. One reason I put it here is that there are many bright people not seemingly hesitant to share their opinion. Thanks for this! Mind expounding further?

No, I don't think you misunderstood - I may have just not clear. Yes, it's the case now where people prefer to spend their deflationary USD, but I think it's primarily because many of us are speculating on the price of BTC. If and when btc is stable enough against USD, the trend of spending USD will continue but for a different reason: the USD's inflation. Hope I explained well.

Apologies! I wasn't planning to terrify people ;) kidding aside, I think it'll a while before we get there, so there is a lot of time.