[ExI] Bitcoin

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Gordon

Subject: Re: [ExI] Bitcoin

 

Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

 

>>. Digital currencies are similiar to precious metals in the sense that
they cannot be inflated at will. 

 

>.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.  But it seems to me
that digital currencies (plural) can be inflated at will by people who
create alternate versions of it.Gordon 

 

 

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.

 

Gordon you have convinced me: bitcoin is not on the verge of replacing fiat
currency.

 

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.

 

spike

 

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