[RurouniK]

The market cap is a counter argument because it shows the trust people, and lately corporations put into Bitcoin as a store of wealth and a hedge against inflation. The market cap proves that bitcoin/blockchain/cryptocurrency enthusiasts put their money where their mouth is.

[bildung]

I hardly doubt you'll find any enconomist working in those corporations fearing inflation. Inflation has been a non-issue since the 1980s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Consumer_Price_I...

[andreaorru]

And yet...

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com

[openfuture]

USD went off the gold standard in 1971.

[bildung]

That page reminds me a bit of time cube :)

Here is a good introductory article about the topic:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/wage-stagnation-much-m...

TL;DR: Inflation plays at most a secondary role, the majority of the effect is a result of stagnant real wages, i.e. the capital owners kept a larger share of the productivity gains.

[andreaorru]

Thanks, that looks amazing. It's gonna take me a while to digest it though. :)

Does the article conclude that the correlation with the US going off the gold standard, and consequent change in monetary policy, is completely spurious?

[bildung]

It is mentioned in passing, but not discussed in depth. I don't think it plays a large role (mostly because it was a consequence of the economic development - they didn't just went off gold because they felt like it), most importantly because the same curve can be seen in other industrial economies in the same period - which didn't use gold before. I guess the computer revolution plays a large role, significantly altering many industries and the character of many occupations. Collective bargaining couldn't keep up fast enough, and thus wages and profits decoupled.

[andreaorru]

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I've read the entire article but it seems to discount the thesis that the technological revolution played a primary role.

It seems to me that like most macroeconomics issues, it's a multivariate phenomenon, so correlational studies can only get you so far.

Do you have books you would recommend on the subject?

[throw0101a]

> The market cap is a counter argument because it shows the trust people

See also Enron, WorldCom, Nortel, Bre-X (for the Canadians out there).

> […] and lately corporations put into Bitcoin as a store of wealth and a hedge against inflation.

Given its volatility, I'm not sure how useful it is as a store of wealth. Less than a year ago it lost half its value in two days (before the recent run-up):

* https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/bitcoin-loses-half-of-its-va...

If you think inflation is coming, then you need to stop working in economics and/or finance, as you're burning up returns hedging against it, at least in the US/industrialized world. The last time it was a problem was >40 years ago (mostly due to OPEC):

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA

Outside of specific circumstance, deflation is the predominant force:

> But Inflation is not inevitable. There are numerous countervailing forces that have been at work for much of the past 50 years. The three big Deflation drivers: 1) Technology, which creates massive economies of scale, especially in digital products (e.g., Software); 2) Robotics/Automation, which efficiently create more physical goods at lower prices; and 3) Globalization and Labor Arbitrage, which sends work to lower cost regions, making goods and services less expensive.

> Put into this context, Inflation is periodic, driven by specific events; Deflation is consistent, the background state of the modern economy. To fully understand this requires grasping how scarcity and abundance act as the drivers of the price of labor and goods. My suspicion is many economists who came of age during earlier eras of inflation fail to discern how the world has changed since.

* https://ritholtz.com/2021/02/stop-stressing-about-inflation/

[playingchanges]

Funny I actually viewed the 2020 BTC drawdown (and subsequent rapid recovery) as my number one buy signal for the current crypto bull market. In a time period when the Dow loses almost 13% in a single day and the fed has to use every move in the playbook to maintain liquidity, crypto holds its own with no fed assistance at all.

As for inflation, I’m guessing the exact opposite argument to yours was being made in the 80s.

[AngrySkillzz]

Or you could say that cryptocurrencies are incredibly correlated with the stock market and thus don't actually serve as a hedge for risk at all

[imtringued]

>As for inflation, I’m guessing the exact opposite argument to yours was being made in the 80s.

By definition, inflation is what happens when demand exceeds supply. If the fed keeps flooding the market with cheap credit the expectation is that the money is invested into more production, either by machines or by foreign labor (i.e. in China). Prices stop growing because supply outstrips demand. That's why the fed is failing to create sufficient inflation. Supply side stimulus is causing the opposite effect and at the same time it is leading to an asset bubble.

[smartties]

Market cap means nothing. I can create 10^32 coins out of thin air, sell one coin at 1$ to one customer. And the next thing I have is a coin with higher marketcap than bitcoin.

[tromp]

That's what makes PoW (with no premine) coins more honest. No coins out of thin air, and the price derives from actual demand for the coins that anyone can mine.

[selestify]

To get recognition as the coin with the highest market cap, you’d need to have it actually traded on an exchange. How many people on the open market are going to buy your coin for $1 on an exchange? There you go, your coin is worthless and has a market cap of roughly zero as determine by the open market exchange.

[smartties]

> How many people on the open market are going to buy your coin for $1 on an exchange?

Even if 1 client per year buy it (let's say my token purpose is to give to access to private content on my website), then my marketcap is still 10^32 $, because marketcap is just the number of supply x the last traded price of my coin.

And yes, we both agree, marketcap has 0 value. It was just to make a point that using the marketcap as argument makes no sense.

[selestify]

> Even if 1 client per year buy it

What about the people who try to sell it after buying it? If they have to sell it for 10^-32 $ before someone buys it then that immediately drops your market cap to just about nothing.

> And yes, we both agree, marketcap has 0 value

No, I just explained why marketcap correctly values your coin as absolutely worthless.