> The number only matters as long as it can subdivided sufficiently to buy the smallest priced thing.
Why would I even buy the smallest priced thing with deflationary bitcoin, when I could instead hoard it and wait for it to increase in value?
I think most people who have ever used bitcoin as a medium of exchange have kicked themselves when they realized how expensive that thing they bought was at current (very high) exchange rates.
> Why would I even buy the smallest priced thing with deflationary bitcoin, ..?
Given the inflationary dollar, you probably wouldn't, but otherwise, you'd need to transact at some point.
Perpetual debt against assets is a common trope in tax avoidance. People do use/abuse this. If enough people abused it inflationary money would fail.
Deflationary money isn't bad, but the common belief says it is. One example that changed my mind was business investment.
Why would you loan money to a business if the money itself might be worth more later? Well you probably wouldn't. Instead, you'd buy a share of the business itself.
We've all live in a system of inflationary money and were educated by a system that teaches it's use. We should acknowledge our bias here and keep an open mind.
> We've all live in a system of inflationary money and were educated by a system that teaches it's use. We should acknowledge our bias here and keep an open mind.
The problem with that is that deflationary money isn't exactly a new idea. It's been tried before, it's workable, but it has problems. However, it is an idea that favors people who already have lots of money over those who don't, which has fueled background level nostalgia (and nostalgic propaganda) for the idea.
Bitcoin had some genuine innovations, but that doesn't mean all the ideas that were baked into it were good ones.
But the increase in bitcoin's price does not come from the inflation relative to it. Even if bitcoin had been as inflationary as the dollar, its dollar value would've still increased by similar amounts.
The arguments surrounding deflation aren't necessarily wrong but it's hard to gauge the actual effects of it in practice at this stage where market forces are way more impactful.
Why would I even buy the smallest priced thing with deflationary bitcoin, when I could instead hoard it and wait for it to increase in value?
I think most people who have ever used bitcoin as a medium of exchange have kicked themselves when they realized how expensive that thing they bought was at current (very high) exchange rates.