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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 style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><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>Gordon<br><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Bitcoin<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Eugen Leitl <<a href="mailto:eugen@leitl.org">eugen@leitl.org</a>> wrote:</span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.5pt;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'>></span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:black'> Digital currencies are similiar to precious metals in the sense that they cannot be inflated at will. </span><span style='font-size:11.5pt;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:black'>It is very true that any *single* digital currency, like BTC, cannot be inflated at will. That is one of the beauties of it! In that respect, any given digital currency is similar to a precious metal.</span><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='color:black'>But it seems to me that digital currencies (plural) can be inflated at will by people who create alternate versions of it</span><span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='color:black'>Gordon </span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This is a powerful argument. Nature has given us a limited number of metals, a few score total. Some of these are unstable chemically or are radioactive. So the ones that are useful for much are limited in number to about a dozen or so. The price of these metals is controlled by how much it costs to produce it. All alloys are similarly controlled by production costs. But if there were arbitrarily many different metals, and it didn’t have a particular cost to refine, the stuff couldn’t be used as money.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Gordon you have convinced me: bitcoin is not on the verge of replacing fiat currency.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Still I like the idea of some kind of digital currency based on perhaps computing cycles. For some time I have been an advocate of putting background cycles to work by assigning them some kind of monetary equivalent value.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>