[ericb]

I guess the reason I don't give this argument any weight is that it is a theoretical argument about money supply and governance when the decisions to use this currency or not are made by average joes who decide whether it is in their self interest. I understand your argument as essentially saying that this currency will cause a tragedy-of-the-commons problem.

The thing is, I think that acknowledges that its popularity is inevitable--tragedy of the commons can only arise when people see something in their interest that is detrimental to society. But as an average joe, given a variety of assets, some deflationary, some not, storing my wealth in the deflationary one is in my interest.

The government never has to use it. I can always convert a small portion of my increasing-value bitcoin holdings into inflationary fiat at the last minute to pay the bill.