Very good point there. Why would I buy a new smartphone if I know there will be a better generation within just half a year? Because I need a new smartphone. All things which are considered necessary with our standard of life will still be bought while having a mild deflation. 

Well, Windows 8 has built-in tools for file-history. I tried it a few weeks. But as far as I know that's only able to backup the stuff you have in you Windows libraries (like documents, pictures, custom libraries etc.). So no AppData except you add those to the libraries.. Also the file-history tool has almost no options you can configure so I'd recommend to use another backup software.

Thank you, that's what I was thinking to post while reading along the whole thread... I know that many Bitcoin fans have a different opinion about this, but I think we should really see Bitcoin as virtual cash or gold. It has the same characteristics as cash or gold (if you disregard that fiat money is being printed by central banks continuously) -- except that it is virtual and thus very easy to transfer and not completely instantaneous.

But the important thing is that just like cash, Bitcoin is low-level -- nobody is preventing anyone from providing higher-level services on top of Bitcoin, i.e. instant payment services. And these services don't have to become a centralized system -- just less decentralized than a real peer-to-peer network: there can be many instant payment providers without any central organization controlling them.

Btw, I also believe that Bitcoin has to become a bit less decentralized: if Bitcoin continues to grow that dramatically there is no other way than establishing Bitcoin provider businesses/services (like online wallets). A typical end-user won't be able to handle the traffic and resource usage of the Bitcoin network -- these tasks have to be transferred to providers. The no-trust system doesn't work in this big world -- it will be always necessary to trust some companies to provide some services. And as long the system is not fully centralized this is no problem at all.

That's incorrect. Bitcoin is NOT inflating at the moment, it is DEFLATING. It's true that the supply of Bitcoin is increasing through mining at the moment. This would normally decrease the buying power (value) of BTC. It's same as when central banks print fiat money. This is what you call inflation.

But due to the current hype and the growing awareness of more and more people about Bitcoin the BTC-demand is exploding and thus the value is increasing dramatically (=deflation). The inflation-factor is just so much smaller than the deflation-factors at the moment.

After all 21 million BTC have been mined, BTC will be still strongly deflating as long as it's still spreading around (big demand). And after it spread around the world (no big demand by people without BTC or there are no more people without BTC), Bitcoin will be still moderately deflating, because Bitcoins get lost. That's why you say Bitcoin has a built-in deflation. There is simply no possibility for inflation except a all-time BTC-price drop (and that will only happen if there is a proof that BTC doesn't work (technically, conceptionally or regulatorily -- I personaly don't think the latter will happen).


Inflation happens when money is created out of nothing. Fiat money is either created by printing money (exactly what is not possible with BTC in long-term) or by banks granting credits without holding reserve, also called credit money (both IS happening all the time).

Think of bitcoin as virtual cash instead of bank deposits. As you keep your cash in a wallet you keep bitcoins on storage media like your PC hard disk or an external hard disk/memory stick.

One advantage of bitcoins: since it is virtual money you can copy it to multiple locations for safety. The bitcoin concept ensures that you can have many copies of the same bitcoin units (technically not 100% exact though) but you can only spend them once. Your wallet could burn in a fire (if you left it at home).. If you store your bitcoins on multiple distributed HDDs redundantly the chance of loosing them is much smaller. You could also print them on paper and keep that in a safe.

For security you need to ensure that nobody including malware gains access to the bitcoins. I.e. my laptop HDD and external HDDs are encrypted using TrueCrypt and my Bitcoin wallet is encrypted itself.

You can also store your bitcoins only as Endgame says. The handling might be easier -- it is much like bringing your cash to a bank though: you have to trust the online wallet or cloud storage provider. Only difference: as far as I know bitcoin online wallets don't create virtual credit money yet and hope that not all depositors come to get their bitcoins back (bank run). Although nobody can prevent bitcoin online wallets/"banks" from doing the same thing..

Hi there,

isn't that what you would call a hyper-deflation? The value of BTC is increasing so all BTC prices are going down. Well might be just the opposite perspective but our fiat currencies are considered to be inflating, so BTC is clearly deflating from this point of view.

Hi there,

I'm relatively new to Bitcoins, I began trading on bitcoin.de about a week ago and registered at Mt. Gox recently. I believe that the Bitcoin price will rise to an even much higher level than it is now. I don't think that the price will crash dramatically in the near future: it couldn't be regulated or forbidden by nations. The only real risks I see are possible technical problem I read about, i.e. the rapidly growing blockchain and transaction jam. I'm sure it is possible to find solutions for these problems.. In the long-run, the concept just works.