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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Aleksei Riikonen<br><br></span><o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>When I wrote those words above, I was alluding to the possibility that although bitcoin is ingeniously structured to ensure scarcity of bitcoins over the long run, analogous to what nature has done for gold, the proliferation of alternative digital currencies might nonetheless inflate the overall digital money supply into the indefinite future. <span style='font-size:11.5pt'>Just as central banks can "print money" out of thin air, so too can anyone create a new bitcoin-like digital currency. If am correct about this then </span>the scarcity of digital money is illusory and it loses an important advantage over ordinary fiat money. I would rather be incorrect. What is wrong with my thinking here?<span style='color:#1F497D'>...</span>--Aleksei Riikonen - <a href="http://www.iki.fi/aleksei" target="_blank">http://www.iki.fi/aleksei</a> <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There is nothing wrong with your thinking Aleksei, it is perfectly legitimate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The closest analogy I can think of is Amazon. When they started up, I refused to buy stock in it, for it seemed to me that anyone could do something analogous to it, and capture arbitrarily much market share. Someone did to some extent: CraigsList is a free version of Amazon. But to my surprise, the number of online sales organizations did not replicate wildly. There are several of them, but Amazon is a good way to go if you want something that is reputation-controlled, and CraigsList for free listing services, after all these years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>BitCoin, I don’t know. I think you have a good point there however, and the Amazon argument is much stronger. The first guy who starts up a BitCoin clone makes a lot of money off of it. So it might be there is a contining market for new digital currency.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>