[Barrin92]

>All fiat currencies are deflated continuously, but you believe 100% of people will prefer this?

I have no idea if 100% of people will prefer it, certainly, some who hold immense amounts of a currency will not, but it was one of the smartest ideas mankind ever had, because it introduced the ability to control the money supply and made currency a very important tool in ensuring stability and made it an effective means of exchange.

Cryptocurrencies are not a means of exchange. They're basically a pile of gold that people imagine themselves sitting on and that increases in value without them doing anything. Which is good if you're one of the few people who have much of it, but it is absolutely detrimental to society at large, which is uninteresting to the libertarianism on steroids that underpins the crypto-craze.

[ericb]

> it is absolutely detrimental to society at large

This may or may not be the case, but regardless, individual decisions are usually made based on an individual's self-interest rather than the warm fuzzy feelings about helping society.

> Cryptocurrencies are not a means of exchange.

It is not necessarily true that that will remain the case. Either way, that doesn't matter if society coalesces around one of them as the "WorldWide Ledger" because individuals are incentivized to avoid inflation.

[Barrin92]

There is no incentive for any average citizen to engage in crypto-currency activity if it is a shoddy means of exchange and favours individuals who own a large pile of it. Most individuals are debtors, not creditors, and for them, inflation is a boon because it benefits them and erodes debt burden over time at expense of creditors.

It is in the interest of someone who uses money as a means of exchange and not as a store of value (which is the overwhelming majority of individuals) to reject crypto-currencies in favour of fiat currency.

Your average citizen gains nothing from adopting a currency that is highly volatile, concentrated in the hands of a few, and awful at completing everyday transactions.

[ericb]

> Your average citizen gains nothing from adopting a currency that is highly volatile, concentrated in the hands of a few, and awful at completing everyday transactions.

Maybe, but those problems are not necessarily permanent, and it can be valuable without targeting the "average citizen." As a counterpoint to your "gains nothing" view, many "average citizens" used bitcoin for transactions in the early days, only to find out that holding some of their currency in bitcoin made them rich, so they did gain something. Even if that is only a small possibility, the possibility is still there.

[GenericsMotors]

> As a counterpoint to your "gains nothing" view, many "average citizens" used bitcoin for transactions in the early days, only to find out that holding some of their currency in bitcoin made them rich, so they did gain something. Even if that is only a small possibility, the possibility is still there.

Confirming that it is preferable to "HODL" than spend this currency...and any gains were at the cost of new bagholders who in turn expected to sell their coins for an even higher price.

[ericb]

I'm sure that's intended as some sort of damning critique, but that's true of most assets in a portfolio. Real estate, commodities, stocks, currency, options, index funds, precious metals--all held in hopes of selling for a higher price.

[GenericsMotors]

Then don't call it a crypto currency and pretend its going to replace fiat currencies any time soon.

A currency is something people want as means of exchanging goods and services, an investment instrument isn't that.

And crypto has performed terribly as an investment instrument as well...can you imagine the chaos if the stock market swung 5-15% from one week to the next for months on end?

Lastly you're conveniently ignoring that stocks can pay dividends, and don't serve only as a speculative asset... Because publicly traded companies generally produce something useful and of tangible value to society, unlike cryptocurrency projects.

[IllogicalLogic]

Market forces will ensure a bitcoin exodus until central bankers stop acting like mental patients with unlimited printer ink cartridges.

The Bretton Woods System ended under Nixon to prop up the military ambitions of this nation, bad move using debt to start pointless wars. Current monetary system structure is deeply flawed, until reform BTFD in BTC.

Note: If you don't feel like paying for the next war, it's a nice bonus in BTC's favor.

[andirk]

Not being ever able to make more coins is a pretty serious feature! Whereas USD can be printed any time.

[gnarcoregrizz]

Individual cryptocurrencies are inflationary or deflationary depending on their algorithm. Monero, for example, has a 2% tail inflation built in to account for lost money and an expanding economy. Inflation can also be tweaked or changed based on an agreement of the miners, or whatever else is built into the protocol - it could be a consensus mechanism beyond mining, or a central administration (which wouldn't be different than fiat really). My main gripe is that the popular logarithmic inflation curves are WAY out of whack and reward the early adopters way too much, making it more of a ponzi scheme than something useful, and ultimately making themselves poorer because if someone feels ripped off, they can invest in a new coin where they are the early adopter, essentially inflating the total money supply.

That said, inflation isn't always a good thing for some people. Neither is a centrally controlled money supply which also has its own winners and losers

[Barrin92]

Sure you can conceive of a crypto currency that is centrally controlled, targets inflation and focusses on price stability, but then you have simply invented 'crypto-fiat'.

The key point is that Ponzi schemes you are talking about are not an accidental byproduct, they're the entire point. There's no reason to reinvent electronic banking, we already have electronic fiat money that works very reliably.

Cryptocurrencies are digital gold and basing an economy on them would be like bringing the gold standard back. The problem being that every economist will tell you, for good reasons, that this is a terrible idea. Cryptocurrencies are not a technological innovation, they're a technological regression. They make things that we already can do more complicated and energy expensive which is the opposite of what technology is supposed to do.