[davidgerard]

The article says "cryptocurrency", not bitcoin. There are 10,000+ cryptocurrencies - and both the trading markets and the payment markets are agnostic as to which token they use, as long as traders can make money and payments go through.

Anyone can make their own crypto, and they do - so cryptocurrency as a whole is hyperinflationary.

Bitcoin maximalists say, but bitcoin is first and unique in many ways. Certainly - but not in ways that the trading or payment markets appear to care about. The "banking the unbanked" proposal is much closer to the payments market - nothing about it seems to depend on bitcoin's special characteristics.

I note that you're proposing a bitcoin version of Austrian economics there, with the word "bitcoin" substituted for "gold" - but Austrian economics proponents have long noted this cut'n'paste cryptocurrency problem with the bitcoin proposition.

[DennisP]

Then you would expect the value of cryptocurrencies to drop like a stone and never recover, but it hasn't worked out that way. Maybe markets aren't quite as agnostic as you think.

Seems to me we're actually heading for the competing private currencies advocated by Hayek, who thought the result would be long-term price stability without the need for top-down control.

[davidgerard]

Crypto prices aren't showing anything like stability - I don't see at all how you could claim that.

Denationalisation of Money was arguably disproven by the ICO boom - it turned out that actual users just treated the shitcoins as proxies for BTC and ETH, and BTC and ETH as proxies for dollars.

[DennisP]

I said we're heading for that, not that we're there now. The demand for transactions is increasing at a rapid pace. I don't think it's reasonable to expect price stability with so much change in demand.

[davidgerard]

It's as, or more, volatile now than it's ever been. You're basing this prediction on no evidence and a theory you don't outline. How will more demand for transactions stabilise the trading price?

[DennisP]

Not more demand but stable demand. Transaction demand growth is still vigorous, as any look at gas prices can verify. I'm just saying Hayek might be right, if the underlying GDP is reasonably stable as he assumed.

But fine, I'll admit I have little to go on. Are you willing to admit the same? Because you're even further from the actual data so far.

[chii]

> Not more demand but stable demand.

as in, demand for using crypto as a transactional currency, rather than as a speculative asset right?

The demand that is unstable is because it is driven primarily by speculation. There's very few commodities being exchanged via crypto.

So to reach stable demand, crypto must be a currency that is used for non-speculative transactions (such as buying groceries, or buying oil from countries). I don't see that happening any time soon tbh, except for may be countries that are trying to escape USA sanctions.

[lowkey]

“Central banks debase currencies to discourage people from hoarding cash and using it as a store of value instead of investing it into productive assets.

So they claim. Could it also be that debasing the currency is far easier than taxation as a form of wealth appropriation since the effect is subtle and indirect?