[jcfrei]

That's exactly my problem with bitcoin as well. I'm just elaborating Hearn's points here; but as it turns out the incentive for miners (in order to pay their mining) is actually a deflationary good (so the value of their mined coins keeps increasing). Unfortunately miners are also required for the confirmation of transactions.

On the other hand a global payment system would require a currency which is at the very least stable (and not increasing in value). But a stable value might not be enough to cover the expenses of most of the miners. Mining is already dominated by Chinese miners which happen to have access to the cheapest electricity - which incidentally completely undermines the aspect of decentralization.

In summary it seems that at this point a decentralized payment system just appears to be too expensive (computationally) to be any serious competition for currencies in countries with a well established, trusted payment system. It still might be of use in the developing world.

[statoshi]

Stability is relative and a matter of perspective - it's not technically possible to engineer something that has a stable value because the value of everything is constantly in flux.

[jcfrei]

I'm not sure I fully understand your position. Price stability (with respect to some basket of common goods) is the primary function of any central bank...

[Natanael_L]

The value does not need to increase for miners to profit. Mining difficulty scales with the total mining power in order to keep the block rate stable. Increased value only gives an incentive for competition, increasing mining power and THEN increasing difficulty.

It works in the other direction too. Lowered value lowers mining competition which LOWERS difficulty. It stabilizes itself automatically.