There might be another virtual currency following BTC

[jtimon]

Don't forget World of Warcraft "gold". MUDflation inflationary enuff for ya?

-MarkM- (I already posted elsewhere that I suspect BitNickels might not prove as deflationary as Actual Original ("Hacker") Bitcoin.)

What are bitNickels ?

OMG already they have dropped out of mainstream consciousness, quick, sell, sell, sell, before the price plum gets eaten! OMG OMG OMG

-MarkM- (Try Freenode #bitcoin-bots /msg nickelbot help nkl)

I can't get there. Can you paste here the displayed text when I do that?

Oh that would just be a tiny little help blurb bowing to IRC flood limitations of only sending one line per two seconds.

Here we can do better: we can go to the source! :

CODE

-MarkM-

What is this code for?
Could you just explain me what bitNickels are or link me to an explanation?

[twobits]

Probably.  It would be nice if the code base was made as common as possible with things based on the bc code, like namecode, and we could run multiwallets to manage our store of them all instead of different programs for each.

[deuxmill]

Inflation benefits the people that have more wealth because it props up their assets, while it goes against the people that earn a wage (usually the middle class and the poor) because it devaluates their wages. The basic mistake you are making is believing the wealthy keep their wealth in currency. They dont.

I don't care who will profit - rich or poor - from inflation currency.

In order to have big enough lending activity people should be discouraged from storing value in currency for long term.

If wealthy do not keep their wealth in currency - objective met. If they are running successful businesses - they have right to be wealthy.

Another enabler....... Seems you haven't put a lot of study into the monetary systems of the world and how one becomes uber wealthy. Their goal is to own nearly everything and make you a slave. At least they want to own everything that can be the facilitator of some type of transaction fee. Indenturing the world....

You're ok with this?

and this ain't happening with Bitcoin?

Bitcoin changed the printing process of currency and that is great but by being limited it is GOLD. Some early adopters (we that are already in the system) will have large amounts and will be able to dictate the price others won't have at all. Now if a new currency i don't talk about Bitcoin but another one which would have an incentive for investing/spending for example inflation or taxation of wealth built in then i would adopt that currency . Bitcoin from what i understand has a constant monetary mass growth that is great until we reach the 21 mil limit then what will be the incentive to spend bitcoins other than changing in state accepted currency? If the hole purpose of bitcoin is a intermediary currency to facilitate transactions from one state backed currency to another or speculation than great it wont matter how valuable it will be. But i don't want an intermediary currency or digital gold i want global money printed by people and not by governments or banks or churches or other power pillar , that will facilitate trade and progress and not wealth.

Currency can't solve all the problems and it needs to be mixed with other measures but we are talking about currency here.

Ok, I see what you are saying. There's only one problem with this line of thinking and that is that many people are caught within the inflation system. They do not have the ability to lend borrow or save. They are swimming for thier very lives. They never asked for a system in which a few people control the money supply. Many never have any excess currency to trade for wealth of any pedigree.

What you would call progress and trade many would do away with so they could catch a breath. Wouldn't it be nice to have a currency that was also wealth so that if you could manage to minimize your expenditures you would be able to save something of value? Through a number of mechanisms I assure you that this would promote a barter system and enhance communities. Many would ban together to trade goods and services in order to keep their wealth/currency. Perhaps to service debt???

This is well understood by the power elite today. They use currency and debt and these businesses you speak of to offer us jobs and steal our time and tear our families and communities apart.

So basically you are saying that something that is engineered to gain value would help those people that are spending all their income on every day living? If you have none it won't bring you more. You need some that you are able to save to gain something from it's gain in value. Bitcoin like currencies have the advantage of not being centralised and so you don't have to convince a bank to lend you some money you can find a person that mined some and maybe start something profitable . If the currency looses value over time then that person might be even happier to spend the money on a business then stick to them. Once you create a product or a service you are in control over how much you ask for it. Now if we combine this with all the open source thinking that is happening all over the place we would have a really low point for entering in many businesses .

Weal if you barter you don't need currency . If you are willing to accept tomatoes for clothes then go ahead i would love to see you manage them. 

Barter would bring you loses and headaches that is all. Or you will accept to barter only for certain things ? Please explain how would a clothing manufacturer barter , so he will accept basically whatever you can throw at them and then they would try too sell those funny things to someone who wants them until they get what they need to produce the clothes or they would ask only for cloth slightly more then what was used to produce the previous clothes? Are you serious ?  This is exactly why  currency was invented so that everyone could accept it and not have to manage all those different things people consider of value , and that is also why currency shouldn't be a medium to store wealth because it's only purpose its to be given away for things you need.


So to make it clear. Bitcoin is a revolution and it should remain just as it is . A deflationary currency . It should behave just like gold because it is gold , digital gold. Gold was valuable because it is a material that ain't degrading so it can be stored. it didn't have any practical use until modern times when we started to use it in tech . But now i'm hoping for that successor of bitcoin that will free the world of organisations like states and banks etc. at least on the level of money.

[giszmo]

I want one that ain't limited to 21 mill .

You want an inflationary currency ?

Plenty of alternatives, such as the USD.

@deuxmill: If BTC were not limited but continue to attribute 50BTC to each block found and taken the 50BTC were at 1500$ before, what do you think the power consumption would be like if the world switches over to BTC in 20 years?

@Grant: I don't understand how people claim the BTC not to be inflationary in a phase it increases its volume by 30% in one year. BTC will be dead in 10 years for the one reason or the other. At least that's what most people believe that now try to make a profit from the rally in the BTC economy.

[CurbsideProphet]

In an economy, deflation is a much bigger evil than inflation.  Deflation promotes savings and discourages spending.  In other words, kills growth.  Why would you buy something for $1,000 today when you can purchase it for $800 down the road?  Inflation promotes spending and stimulates growth.  I'll buy this house for $200,000 today because it will be worth $250,000 in 10 years.  This is why central banks try to keep a controlled amount of inflation over time rather than deflation. 

The problem is when things are taken to excess as seen in government monetary policy and consumer indebetedness over the last decade or so. 

Bitcoin is deflationary by design, and thus promotes hoarding.  This is a bit of a paradox for something that is trying to become a currency. 

[deuxmill]

I want one that ain't limited to 21 mill .

You want an inflationary currency ?

Plenty of alternatives, such as the USD.

@deuxmill: If BTC were not limited but continue to attribute 50BTC to each block found and taken the 50BTC were at 1500$ before, what do you think the power consumption would be like if the world switches over to BTC in 20 years?

Huge. I can only think of a huge rush to produce more electricity cheaper . What would be the power consumption if all cars would be changed with electric cars? We have the technology to produce enough  power. The problem is that there ain't much incentive to produce much more power right now because it can't be stored. What will be the technology in 20 years ? 20 years is a really long period at today's pace i can only think it will accelerate.

[giszmo]

I want one that ain't limited to 21 mill .

You want an inflationary currency ?

Plenty of alternatives, such as the USD.

@deuxmill: If BTC were not limited but continue to attribute 50BTC to each block found and taken the 50BTC were at 1500$ before, what do you think the power consumption would be like if the world switches over to BTC in 20 years?

Huge. I can only think of a huge rush to produce more electricity cheaper . What would be the power consumption if all cars would be changed with electric cars? We have the technology to produce enough  power. The problem is that there ain't much incentive to produce much more power right now because it can't be stored. What will be the technology in 20 years ? 20 years is a really long period at today's pace i can only think it will accelerate.

i'm talking about mining power consumption. do you think it is justifyable to have 3MW already in btc today? i do but if price goes up by x100k, power consumption will do so, too and 300 nuclear power plants is not what i want to be needed to run bitcoin so for me it is ecologically essential to reduce the reward at some point. satoshi was maybe too pessimistic about global adoption of btc. we can only guess what the $-reward per block will be at the end of the 50BTC area. I imagine it could at least be 150.000$/block and i somehow doubt that satoshi really thought it would go that fast.

at that point, bitcoin will be the only lottery that cashes out about 100% of the money you put in as i doubt that many people will be participating at cash out rates of the established lotteries.

[Trader Steve]

There are many millions of dollars invested in support of bitcoin. You can always invest millions of dollars to create a competing currency for bitcoin. Or, maybe it would be cheaper to buy bitcoins.

+1

[Trader Steve]

I want one that ain't limited to 21 mill .

Who says you can't do a, "stock split" with bitcoin?

It already splits automatically because of its divisibility.

[Trader Steve]

Inflation benefits the people that have more wealth because it props up their assets, while it goes against the people that earn a wage (usually the middle class and the poor) because it devaluates their wages. The basic mistake you are making is believing the wealthy keep their wealth in currency. They dont.

I don't care who will profit - rich or poor - from inflation currency.

In order to have big enough lending activity people should be discouraged from storing value in currency for long term.

If wealthy do not keep their wealth in currency - objective met. If they are running successful businesses - they have right to be wealthy.

See:

Bitcoin And The Virtue of Hoarding And Deflation
http://economicsandliberty.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/bitcoin-and-the-virtue-of-hoarding-and-deflation/

and

What is Money?
http://economicsandliberty.wordpress.com/what-is-money/

[error]

In an economy, deflation is a much bigger evil than inflation.  Deflation promotes savings and discourages spending.  In other words, kills growth.  Why would you buy something for $1,000 today when you can purchase it for $800 down the road?  Inflation promotes spending and stimulates growth.  I'll buy this house for $200,000 today because it will be worth $250,000 in 10 years.  This is why central banks try to keep a controlled amount of inflation over time rather than deflation. 

The problem is when things are taken to excess as seen in government monetary policy and consumer indebetedness over the last decade or so. 

Bitcoin is deflationary by design, and thus promotes hoarding.  This is a bit of a paradox for something that is trying to become a currency. 

This again? Go learn basic economics.

[relative]

satoshi was maybe too pessimistic about global adoption of btc. we can only guess what the $-reward per block will be at the end of the 50BTC area. I imagine it could at least be 150.000$/block and i somehow doubt that satoshi really thought it would go that fast.

god, I hope the exchanges offer short selling by then.

[qikaifu]

it cost bitcoin 2 years to have 200 million usd market cap., which has no competitors. If bitcoin exists, another similar e-currency will be hard to succeed. As people will adopt the one with more adopters.

[TraderTimm]

it cost bitcoin 2 years to have 200 million usd market cap., which has no competitors. If bitcoin exists, another similar e-currency will be hard to succeed. As people will adopt the one with more adopters.

I'm inclined to agree, 'first mover' advantage usually defines who's number one. Numerous comparisons to online services provides a good example of this phenomenon. Hard to overtake something unless it fails spectacularly. My bet is on bitcoin 1.0

[xyu]

I've recently discovered bitdollar.org but I don't have much time to learn about it. As I understand it is a competitor to bitcoin, or am I wrong? Have anyone investigated what bitdollar is and what its key features are?

[oOoOo]

Deflation promotes savings and discourages spending.  In other words, kills growth. 

 
Perfect! Kill "growth" before it kills us!

Bitcoin is deflationary by design, and thus promotes hoarding.  This is a bit of a paradox for something that is trying to become a currency. 

No, it is the prerequisite of a functioning society.
.

[cbeast]

I've recently discovered bitdollar.org but I don't have much time to learn about it. As I understand it is a competitor to bitcoin, or am I wrong? Have anyone investigated what bitdollar is and what its key features are?

I didn't see any explanation about it on that link. Looks dodgy.