Bitcoin Forum

These are yet to come articles in the "New to BitCoin" thread.

What if someone bought up all the existing bitcoins?
Won't loss of wallets and the finite amount of bitcoins create excessive deflation, destroying BitCoin?

Could someone elaborate on these issues as it seems to be a core issue of the entire BitCoin economy. Especially the inflation part of it and what can occur as more and more people jump on the BitCoin bandwagon.

Do you think that is possible? The more someone bought, the more expensive Bitcoins would become.


No. Check divisibility of Bitcoin.

Please read: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=10426.0

Also this
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ

I had a quick look at the FAQ when this was first posted - it doesn't really go into the kind of detail I think we'd want as articles in the "New to BitCoin" thread. I think what we'd want, for the deflation question, is a summary of all the points raised in Hazek's thread.

The "What if someone bought up all the existing bitcoins" question could, however, probably be covered by rezin777's answer - there's not much we can really say about a sellers' market!

see the silver crash of the 80's when a group tried to corner silver.  The people who tried lost over a billion dollars.  The tighter you squeeze a free market the more explosively it hits you in the face.

Guys this is exactly the core problem of the BitCoin economy. Despite the fact that I look for a simple answer to a simple question it all gets very convoluted.

How can this ever be pushed into the mainstream media when its like this. I now been reading on BitCoin for 3 days, and reading FAQ's over and over again and still some things does not make sense. I know deep down inside its simple and makes a lot of sense, but it takes to LONG to get into it. There needs to be a BitCoin for dummies section or you may as well forget pushing this currency beyond nerds and anonymity freaks.

The answers are convoluted sounding because the questions are bad. Try answering this one clearly:

What if you get angry and beat your wife, killing her?

Seriously, give it a go.

Your questions weren't sufficiently answered?

This currency is voluntary. The main stream will get it when they get it. If they don't they will fall behind. If you've read the FAQ, good, now search the forums for threads that discuss what you are curious about. Most questions have been answered over and over again.

Agreed, and the "New to BitCoin" thread you referenced in your first post is an attempt to be that guide. But this is all run by volunteers, and some things (many things!) aren't completed.

The questions you asked aren't necessarily simple, either (well, the second is: if someone tries to buy up all available bitcoins the price will skyrocket, and either they'll be successful and many people will end up very rich, or - more likely - they'll fail). The deflation question doesn't have such a simple answer, and it's entirely possible that several different views exist. What I can tell you is that 21 million bitcoins are divisible to eight decimal places, so there are - effectively - 2,100,000,000,000,000 "things" which mitigates - somewhat - the problem of lost wallets. I believe it may also be possible to change the number of decimal places.

Questions like yours help the process of building documentation move on. Hopefully someone will take this thread and update the "New to Bitcoin" thread, if they feel there's enough detail here to do so. If not, another post may draw out further detail. But these things do take time, as the people working on them are all volunteers.

There's a reason economic theory is highly politicized. Answers to questions are rarely obvious, and it is difficult to get unbiased data.

I dont disagree with you guys. And I myself working full time in the IT industry just find it a bit to much, even for me. I know the person living next door most likely works in a corner shop, which would make BitCoins impossible to pitch to such a person. I am just looking for clarity. But definitely a project that is interesting and I will keep reading and probably getting it all much clearer once I get my hands on some BitCoins. Learning curve, all very interesting, but I just dont think the rest of the world would look the same way on this.

Many people here probably believe that the person working in a corner shop probably should understand, or at least make an effort to learn, about inflation and deflation. But the reality is that they don't, won't, and probably don't need to - yet they use cash all the time. It's kind of the same with bitcoin - we don't really need to know about deflation to use it. If we find stuff interesting we'll make an effort to learn about it, but a lot of economics doesn't have neat, easy answers. I find this interesting, but the more I learn the more I realise that there are huge disagreements about a lot of this stuff. There's an old joke about a politician asking how to get five different economic opinions, and being told to ask four different economists... :-)

If you really want to talk this with people who don't care to learn economics, just say:

"Yes, if everyone prefers dollars over bitcoins then someone could theoretically buy them all. This isn't a reason to stay away since you can insist on being made fabulously wealthy before you'll give up your last coins."

"No, deflation makes your coins more valuable. Back them up."

What if someone bought up all the US Dollars?

What if someone bought up all the 6990s?

What if someone bought up all the air?

And what if someone bought all the inches!?!

OR what if someone bought up all the what if questions?  :o