On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 11:57 PM, Mike Caldwell <mcaldwell@swipeclock.com> wrote:

I believe that if there ever becomes a consensus that Bitcoin’s inflation parameters were a show-stopper for the Bitcoin economy, that the power to correct it lies with merchants, who would vote for changing the rules. I believe they would do this not by changing Bitcoin, but by accepting, in parallel, a brand new alt coin that reflects the consensus as to how the inflation should be. I believe such an alt coin would have its genesis at around the time that consensus moved toward accepting inflation, rather than adopting the seignorage of some other alt coin out there today.

Agreed Mike.

The economic parameters of Bitcoin are fixed in stone forever. Adding a monetary authority to Bitcoin is impossible and undesirable because the implicit contract of Bitcoin is that there would finally be a currency in which no one could mess around with. It would betray all prior holders.

But these are ideas everyone is free to experiment with in new altcoins. If the lack of inflation in Bitcoin ever becomes a problem in day-to-day usage, such a parallel chain could become the de-facto cryptocurrency for spending. Or just maybe fiat already works well enough there...

Wladimir