> > 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 -------------- --------------
How do you propose to use Bitcoin on a week-long vacation or for life in general, when it's value constantly swings up and down? Or for the average person's paycheck to swing up and down in value every week? Awfully hard to budget. There is also a catch-22, no altcoin can gain acceptance because the infrastructure for Bitcoin already exists, but without infrastructure, no altcoin can gain acceptance. Furthermore, the average merchant or consumer lacks the idealism or knowledge to bring about such changes in Bitcoin. It's a lofty idea that the average person will bring about such change when they don't bring about such change already in their own lives. It is ironic considering that there's no Bitcoin "chamber of commerce," just a few programmers in a development mailing list who direct the future of Bitcoin, and thus these merchants you speak of have little to no voice what so ever, with a few exceptions of merchants who do subscribe to this mailing list.
What I am proposing makes sound economic sense. It is the only way to fix the speculation crisis.
Just ask an economist.
And the economic parameters of bitcoin are not fixed in stone. If there needs to be a change, it will be messy but it could happen.
Besides, using Austrian precepts of inflation blurs the fact that deflation will still be possible under my proposal. Although amusingly enough Austrian-defined inflation is still occurring within Bitcoin, in fact faster then desired since blocks are being processed every seven minutes now as opposed to ten, and it's quite likely when 28nm ASIC miners are released that blocks will be processed every five minutes before the difficulty is adjusted again.