| Libertarians are annoying, anyone who thinks technology will solve complex social problems will be dissapointed by bitcoin eventually. The deflationary nature of bitcoin is it's hardest aspect to defend because there really hasn't been anything like it in history before. A finite asset that is easy to transfer over long distances without central interferance really is unprecedented. I think you have bought in to the bitcoin fantasy that it will be the only currency in use. I don't think that will ever happen for a variety of reasons. If gold and fiat can coexist why not bitcoin too?.
Loaning bitcoins seems to be a crazy proposition, so I suspect inflationary currencies will stick around just for that reason. Not to mention bitcoin by itself is fairly terrible for in person transactions, if you add a service on top what is the difference for the customer between that and a credit card company?. Fiat is useful and solves problems that bitcoin doesn't. Regarding mining, I have my own concerns, bitcoin proponents love to describe mining as “securing the network” and equate it with vaults and security guards used in banks. This comparison is at least partly flawed, mining prevents double spends and nothing else. It's certainly true that a centralized ledger could prevent double spends for tiny fraction of the cost of mining, but globally who can be trusted by all parties to adminster it?. The comparison isn't one sided however, it is much cheaper to securely store (and move) bitcoins than gold for example. Energy use is tricky, preserving the environment should be a top a priority, but should we aspire to use less energy?. One question I have often asked but never got a good answer to, how much of the worlds energy needs to be devoted to mining to prevent a 51% attack?. If it is north of 30% of the worlds energy output then right now that would seem a huge waste. But if we had access to cheaper, cleaner renewable energy, would it still be a problem?. Malware?, it's just a symptom of larger problem, computer security is terrible. No one is really sure who to plame, users, applications, operating systems and hardware makers all come into the firing line. If bitcoin pushes forward computer security surely that can only be a good thing?. I'm unconvinced about whether greshams law applies to mining due to the performance disparity between ASICs and CPU/GPUs, but surely if computer security improves this problem diminishes?. |