[antiscam]

This is a bit of a digression, but it's something important that needs to be said. Most of the Bitcoin fanatics are drawn to Bitcoin in part because of a bizarrely deep anger at the notion that units of their functional currency -- usually dollars -- are being inflated.

(Ignore for the moment that, though the dollar did decline in value from 2002 to 2008, it's actually not clear what it's currently doing; it may be experiencing deflation itself.)

The irritating and incorrect thing about this anger is that nobody's forced to hold the currency that they're upset at. Even for "fiat currency" that needs to be used to pay taxes or offset debts, nothing requires that it be held long-term and thus subject any individual to inflation. Choosing to experience inflation in a government's currency is thus, in all modern governments, an investment choice like any other investment choice. Many people hedge against inflation, and it's very easy for any even moderately aware investor to do this. The argument that Bitcoin's needed even partly because people have no way to avoid the oppressive inflation of a corrupt regime is, basically, economic, financial, and political nonsense.

[tatsuke95]

Very good points. There are near-infinite ways to store your wealth, from cash, to real estate to art to Pez dispensers. Bitcoin might be another.

Inflation in and of itself is not harmful. Unexpected inflation and lack of accounting for it can be.