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Title: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: g00se on March 24, 2011, 11:49:39 PM Firstly I just want to say I think bitcoins is a great idea... but what if:
- Someone bought up a large amount of the limited supply in the first four years? - Bitcoin really took off and went global, meaning maybe 1.5 of the 2.1 quadrillion units is used up. - Then the person who bought the large percentage of bitcoins in the first 4 years decided to delete his wallet (or in some other way the wallet becomes inaccessible). Wouldn't destroying bitcoins be far worse for the overall economy than burning dollar bills (which is illegal) because you can replace dollar bills but not bitcoins. Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: fabianhjr on March 24, 2011, 11:52:06 PM Since the coins never had an effect on the overall economy from the moment they were bought caused deflation and by the time it is deleted nobody would notice.
However, a worse scenario would be injecting it back in a short period of time, which would cause inflation. Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: kiba on March 24, 2011, 11:56:14 PM No. It just mean that everybody else's bitcoin are worth a lot more. Also, bitcoin are never destroyed, only lost.
Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: epii on March 24, 2011, 11:58:53 PM Contemplated a very similar scenario in the first paragraph here: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4898.0
Simply put, nothing distinguishes a lost coin from a coin which is not in circulation for anyone in the economy except the owner. (A large cache of unspent coins could affect the economy, though, if the economy was made aware of the "threat" of them being injected into circulation.) Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: fabianhjr on March 25, 2011, 12:01:29 AM No. It just mean that everybody else's bitcoin are worth a lot more. Also, bitcoin are never destroyed, only lost. They are technically destroyed for about 10 years when it would become feasible to crack the key that unlocks it. In the future maybe some would opt to crack old lost keys for the Bitcoins they hold and transfer them to safer keys. Also, if you want to volunteer in making my Bitcoins worth more, go ahead. No one will blame you. :P Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: barbarousrelic on March 25, 2011, 01:03:45 PM Any financial system can be damaged by someone willing to destroy a massive amount of their own wealth. But self-interest usually discourages people from doing so.
Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: Jered Kenna (TradeHill) on March 25, 2011, 02:24:10 PM Any financial system can be damaged by someone willing to destroy a massive amount of their own wealth. But self-interest usually discourages people from doing so. Nice quote, obviously the bigger the economy the more money you need. Anyone with the figures on hand and the brain to do the math want to figure out what would happen to the USD if Bill Gates burned all his or decided to inject it in to the economy. We can pretend that he has liquid cash for whatever his net worth is. Obviously his liquid capital is a lot less. Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: MoonShadow on March 25, 2011, 10:15:33 PM Any financial system can be damaged by someone willing to destroy a massive amount of their own wealth. But self-interest usually discourages people from doing so. Nice quote, obviously the bigger the economy the more money you need. Anyone with the figures on hand and the brain to do the math want to figure out what would happen to the USD if Bill Gates burned all his or decided to inject it in to the economy. We can pretend that he has liquid cash for whatever his net worth is. Obviously his liquid capital is a lot less. If he were to sell all of his investments, convert to cash, and burn it all in a public pyre; then all of the remaining cash in existance would be, temporarily, slightly more valuable. Not to any extent that would be noticable, however, and only for however long it took the Fed to replicate those destroyed bills. As for injecting it into the economy, that is exactly what he does with most of it. That's what investing is. Title: Re: Another Newbie with Questions Post by: Jered Kenna (TradeHill) on March 26, 2011, 03:13:36 PM Any financial system can be damaged by someone willing to destroy a massive amount of their own wealth. But self-interest usually discourages people from doing so. Nice quote, obviously the bigger the economy the more money you need. Anyone with the figures on hand and the brain to do the math want to figure out what would happen to the USD if Bill Gates burned all his or decided to inject it in to the economy. We can pretend that he has liquid cash for whatever his net worth is. Obviously his liquid capital is a lot less. If he were to sell all of his investments, convert to cash, and burn it all in a public pyre; then all of the remaining cash in existance would be, temporarily, slightly more valuable. Not to any extent that would be noticable, however, and only for however long it took the Fed to replicate those destroyed bills. As for injecting it into the economy, that is exactly what he does with most of it. That's what investing is. I guess anything that's not cash / gold sitting locked in your safe or safe deposit box is in the economy. Hadn't thought about it like that. |