Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

I just had an interesting hypothetical question for the economists in the group.... When/If the entire fiat financial system collapses, my guess is that its going to do that pretty hard...
where in that none of the fiat currencies will be worth much of anything.

What then happens to bitcoin? Are we going to see million dollar bitcoins? Or will a new fiat currency take over?

It is highly implausible that all fiats would all be worth nothing simultaneously.  If the USD hyperinflated for example you could find that 1 BTC = $100,000 and that is just about enough to buy a video game on steam.  If  most/all fiats became some hyperinflated as to be worth less than the paper they are on (i.e global Zimbabwae) I would expect most exchanges would be pricing BTC:GLD and BTC:SLV.

...assuming no global societal Armageddon of course. But if it's going to get that bad, we might as well just all die now.

The FED has recently said that when unemployment gets to 6.5%, that they will begin to raise interest rates... What affect do you think this will have on bitcoin prices?

Instinctively, an interest rate hike combined with genuine austerity/spending cut policies by governments (pigs might fly) would make me bearish on commodities, in line with the drop in gold prices after the 1980 peak. Back then, traders could earn more profit in stocks than in shiny metal stuff, though. Bitcoin is far too novel to shoehorn into the same economic models that might apply to physical commodities, however, so the truthful answer has to be "I don't know".