[ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks?

[Kelly Anderson]

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 1:09 AM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:

>
> My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people would
> like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift Alcor)
> using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better.
>
> If someone wants to gift Alcor Bitcoins, take them Max!

If they want to bet their future resurrection on the price of Bitcoins,
that's a trickier proposition. The "we'll thaw you out if the price of
Bitcoin goes below X" is a big bet for a cryonaut to take. Of course you
could sell some of them for whatever the price of cryo is if they ever go
above that rate of dollars.

In the same sense though, you can't tell what the value of the dollars in
cryonaut's accounts will be worth in 50 years either. So it is a bit of a
crap shoot no matter how you slice it.

The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for
> everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of
> 21 million coins available. The anonymous people behind bitcoin have
> designed this as a 'boutique' currency  for test purposes I think. The 21
> million upper limit automatically places it out of contention to be a
> general means of exchange. Hmm....unless we want to get into 'virtual'
> bitcoins. ;)
>

Bitcoins are divisible into infinitesimally small parts. Everyone can have
bitcoins, but not a whole bitcoin.


> Of course 'real' currencies only exist in finite amounts which are only a
> small fraction of the total assets in a country but we have 'trusted' banks
> to magnify these currencies through fractional reserve banking. And, of
> course, as we see in 'quantitative easing' you can print more and add
> zeroes to the numbers.
>

Yeah, that's comforting. Not.

-Kelly
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