[ngpio]

> Bitcoin would help because it is a fixed-supply currency. If the world switches to it, no government anywhere will be able to practise inflation anymore.

Correct, no government could, but inflation is innate to the cryptocurrency environment as a whole, even if the current popular coins have capped supplies (dogecoin being a notable exception [1]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin#Currency_supply

[nirnira]

Yes, I'm well aware that some coins have baked-in inflation. However, that's an architectural decision made in the design of any given coin, not "innate to the cryptocurrency environment" per se.

Anyway, if coins are in competition to attract the most users (which they are) we should see people's natural preference emerge: trade in a fixed-supply curency or in a constant inflation currency. I certainly know which I would prefer, but let me ask you, if you had the choice between two coins identical in every aspect except coin A will never be debased (so the coin you buy today is worth as much or more tomorrow) and coin B will be perpetually debased (so the coin you buy today is worth less every following day) which would you rather buy into?

You see there's nothing natural or good about inflation, we've just grown inured to it thanks to the prevailing lies and obfuscation around its use by contemporary governments.

[ngpio]

I think there's two things wrong with this comment exchange:

* you're not interpreting the quoted phrase literally enough;

* I'm being way too generous with the definition of 'inflation' to expect myself to be understood.

I say "inflation" is innate to the cryptocurrency environment, because the environment's very existence encourages the perpetual creation of new coins with new features.

This should be distinguished from traditional inflation — perhaps "meta-inflation" is a better term — to represent the fact that existing currencies lose value when mining power is redirected towards new ones.

As more currencies are created, each one becomes less able to reach its mining cap. (This ignores the extremely significant social ramifications of cryptocurrencies becoming more popular every day as a result of this, but those network effects are a fairly predictable S-curve.)

You're absolutely right that we've yet to see a preference emerge, but you're also modelling it as a choice between two options. In an environment where new currencies are being created daily, I doubt that the existence or lack of a mining cap will be of much relevance. I suspect that new generations of currencies will repeatedly overtake older ones (either as general-use currencies like BTC or specific-value ones like NMC) long before mining of the older currencies is cut off.

I don't think we'll ever settle into a one-coin environment, and I don't think that would be healthy. In fact I would hope that the opposite situation occurs — a world where currencies take on semantic value due to the way their particular featuresets interact with human nature. Value and wealth should maintain some amount of non-universality. That effectively dissolves the question of capped vs. uncapped mining as ideals.

[nirnira]

Great points, thanks for the detailed response.

I guess my counter-argument would be that network effects will be powerful for cryptocurrencies - so as for example Bitcoin grows more popular, the incentives for using it grow, the disincentives for using anything else grow smaller.

I'll admit that that's a fairly unimaginative hypothesis (Bitcoin > everything else)...

Honestly cryptocoins make my head hurt. I think it's very hard trying to imagine how things will unfold. I don't know how to think about them yet.