A Bitcoin Epiphany

[Carlton Banks]

A perfect Medium of Exchange and Unit of Account crypto currency would have fixed prices, by sacrificing fixed supply.

No.

Fluctuations in the supply of base commodities should be accounted for using their market price sold with a fixed supply of money. You imply that 1 grain of wheat during good harvests is equivalent to one grain of wheat from a bad harvest. Not correct. Fixed supply of money takes account of the differing value of differing rates of supply, as it should.

[DannyHamilton]

Speaking from experience, i have federal reserve notes because my employer pays me in them and all merchants accept them.

Today?  Certainly, but saying that it will be that way in the future just because it is that way today is not a very convincing argument.

All of my expenses are paid first in federal reserve notes, whatever is left over is converted immediately into PRECIOUS VALUE STORAGE APPRECIATING VALUE BITCOIN.

That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Your expenses don't all come due at the exact moment that you receive payment from your employer.  What are you going to do with those federal reserve notes between the time when you receive them and when you use them?  Wouldn't it make sense to convert most of them immediately to PRECIOUS VALUE STORAGE APPRECIATING VALUE BITCOIN and then just spend the bitcoin directly as needed.

In Rome the government started to debase the gold denar coins with copper. Soon people were hoarding the old gold denar coins and spending only the copper based debased coins in the market. The reason why is easy to see. If you have run out of all money and you need to sell one of your possessions for food, you will sell your least valuable possessions first, you will not sell your most valuable possessions first.

That assumes that you haven't already exchanged your least valuable possessions for more valuable possessions.  If they are so valueless, then why do you even have them?  Furthermore, why were the merchants in the market willing to give away their valuable merchandise for the debased coins?  Any intelligent merchant would have a higher price for their merchandise when customers wanted to pay with debased coins, and a lower price for customers willing to part with the old gold denar coins.

The same is true of money. If you have gold and silver, you will buy things with silver first.

As I just pointed out with the price difference for merchandise depending on the coins used, the validity of this statement depends both on the current exchange rate between gold and silver and the perceived future exchange rate between gold and silver.

If I have a product that you want today and the current public exchange rate is 5 silver coins per gold coin, which would you rather spend for the product, 2 gold coins, or 9 silver?  Does your answer change if the exchange rate between silver and gold has been increasing recently?  How about if it has been decreasing recently?

[BitProdigy]

A perfect Medium of Exchange and Unit of Account crypto currency would have fixed prices, by sacrificing fixed supply.

No.

Fluctuations in the supply of base commodities should be accounted for using their market price sold with a fixed supply of money. You imply that 1 grain of wheat during good harvests is equivalent to one grain of wheat from a bad harvest. Not correct. Fixed supply of money takes account of the differing value of differing rates of supply, as it should.

"…people would agree on a standard set of wholesale prices of commodities to treat as the standard value in which they would prefer to have their currencies kept constant." - F. A. Hayek

"each Hayek is really just a derivative asset. How then would the issuing firm get the public to start treating the Hayeks as money? On the night of the initial auction, after the market price of the Hayeks had been ascertained, the issuing firm would specify a commodity basket (consisting of bread, eggs, milk, and other goods relevant to consumers) that cost, say, $60 at Wal-Mart. Then the firm would announce to the public the following non-binding pledge: "We will use our firm's assets to adjust the outstanding supply of Hayeks such that 5 Hayeks will always (insofar as it is humanly possible) have the purchasing power to buy this specified commodity basket." -https://mises.org/library/hayeks-plan-private-money

The objection you bring up was addressed by Hayek, and his solution was "constant but not fixed value":

"It would be expedient that the issuing institution (preferable a DAO) should announce precisely the collection of commodities in terms of which it would aim to keep the value of the [Hayek] constant. But it would be neither necessary nor desirable that it tie itself legally to a particular standard. Experience of the response of the public to competing offers would gradually show which combination of commodities constituted the most desired standard at any time and place. Changes in the importance of the commodities, the volume in which they were traded, and the relative stability or sensitivity of their prices might suggest alterations to make the currency more popular." - F. A. Hayek

The answer then is that if the price of wheat fluctuates too frequently because of good and bad harvests, then wheat would not be something included in the basket of commodities on which the currency is pegged.

[BitProdigy]

Speaking from experience, i have federal reserve notes because my employer pays me in them and all merchants accept them.

Today?  Certainly, but saying that it will be that way in the future just because it is that way today is not a very convincing argument.

All of my expenses are paid first in federal reserve notes, whatever is left over is converted immediately into PRECIOUS VALUE STORAGE APPRECIATING VALUE BITCOIN.

That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

Your expenses don't all come due at the exact moment that you receive payment from your employer.  What are you going to do with those federal reserve notes between the time when you receive them and when you use them?  Wouldn't it make sense to convert most of them immediately to PRECIOUS VALUE STORAGE APPRECIATING VALUE BITCOIN and then just spend the bitcoin directly as needed.

In Rome the government started to debase the gold denar coins with copper. Soon people were hoarding the old gold denar coins and spending only the copper based debased coins in the market. The reason why is easy to see. If you have run out of all money and you need to sell one of your possessions for food, you will sell your least valuable possessions first, you will not sell your most valuable possessions first.

That assumes that you haven't already exchanged your least valuable possessions for more valuable possessions.  If they are so valueless, then why do you even have them?  Furthermore, why were the merchants in the market willing to give away their valuable merchandise for the debased coins?  Any intelligent merchant would have a higher price for their merchandise when customers wanted to pay with debased coins, and a lower price for customers willing to part with the old gold denar coins.

The same is true of money. If you have gold and silver, you will buy things with silver first.

As I just pointed out with the price difference for merchandise depending on the coins used, the validity of this statement depends both on the current exchange rate between gold and silver and the perceived future exchange rate between gold and silver.

If I have a product that you want today and the current public exchange rate is 5 silver coins per gold coin, which would you rather spend for the product, 2 gold coins, or 9 silver?  Does your answer change if the exchange rate between silver and gold has been increasing recently?  How about if it has been decreasing recently?

Let's say you have 50 copper denar and 10 gold denar and you need to buy a loaf of bread which is priced at 50 copper denar or 10 gold denar. Obviously you wouldn't use the 10 gold, and be left with 50 copper and piece of bread. You'd rather use the copper and be left with 10 gold and piece of bread.

To answer the point you bring: why would you spend the time, and pay the fees, to convert your 50 copper into another 10 gold, and THEN spend that on the loaf of bread, when you can just spend the 50 copper on the bread directly? It would add an extra unnecessary stop. This would require extra time and effort, and probably fees, which are entirely unnecessary. This is why you would just spend the 50 copper on the bread instead of converting it to gold first and then spending the gold on the bread. Hopefully that answers your question.

[Carlton Banks]

F. A. Hayek etc

Not interested in Hayek. He got things wrong, as did Mises.


In particular, Hayek was a massive hypocrite. One minute he's opining about the "Denationalisation of money" (a more candid appraisal would, of course, have been "De-gangsterisation of money"), the next he's walking through the door to 10 Downing Street alongside Margaret Thatcher. So it's no surprise that his thesis on removing government from the money supply involved the installation of a fascist one world currency, with the supply controlled by an elite. Because stable prices, lol.

[aardvark15]

I think the more uses bitcoin has the more value it will have.  By uses I mean store of value, method of payment, way to move money around the world quickly and cheaply, etc.  I hope it is used for all of these purposes to some degree.

[BitProdigy]

F. A. Hayek etc

Not interested in Hayek. He got things wrong, as did Mises.


In particular, Hayek was a massive hypocrite. One minute he's opining about the "Denationalisation of money" (a more candid appraisal would, of course, have been "De-gangsterisation of money"), the next he's walking through the door to 10 Downing Street alongside Margaret Thatcher.

attacking the character of the person who came up with is useless, and also a bit childish quite frankly. It has no bearing on whether or not it would make good currency.

The key component is that it is not *forced* upon anyone. Someone events it, and then if people like it, they use it, if they don't, they don't. The beauty of a free market is the open competition. Whatever works best will emerge as the most used. If this idea for a currency is not a good one, no worries good sir, it will fail and nobody will use it.

So it's no surprise that his thesis on removing government from the money supply involved the installation of a fascist one world currency, with the supply controlled by an elite. Because stable prices, lol.

installation of a fascist world currency? that would require the government make a single currency that we are all forced to use. the entire point of his book and the "Denationalization of Currency" is to take money out of the hands of the government and allow free market competition between currencies to reign. This idea is simply his idea of what would emerge in the free market as a currency stabilized not a central bank, but by the private issuer.

The supply control is not by "the elite" or "the government" but by the PROTOCOL OF THE DECENTRALIZED BLOCK CHAIN BASED COIN. come on now, i thought this was the Bitcoin forum? Of course I am talking about the issuance of a coin based on this model by a DAO with no central controller.

The protocol pegs to the basket of commodities and automatically and autonomously alters supply to stabilize without the need for a trusted central authority. I assumed that was already understood I apologize.

[cjmoles]

A perfect Medium of Exchange and Unit of Account crypto currency would have fixed prices, by sacrificing fixed supply.

No.

Fluctuations in the supply of base commodities should be accounted for using their market price sold with a fixed supply of money. You imply that 1 grain of wheat during good harvests is equivalent to one grain of wheat from a bad harvest.  Not correct. Fixed supply of money takes account of the differing value of differing rates of supply, as it should.

I am not disagreeing....However....

"Fluctuations in the supply of base commodities should be accounted for using their market price sold with a fixed supply of money. You imply that 1 grain of wheat during good harvests is equivalent to one grain of wheat from a bad harvest. Not correct. Fixed supply of money takes account of the differing value of differing rates of supply, as it should."

I believe that would depend on how those grains were distributed.  For example, if the excess grain were stored in silos during good harvests then it could help subsidize the bad harvests....which would have a value averaging effect.

"Fluctuations in the supply of base commodities should be accounted for using their market price sold with a fixed supply of money. You imply that 1 grain of wheat during good harvests is equivalent to one grain of wheat from a bad harvest. Not correct. Fixed supply of money takes account of the differing value of differing rates of supply, as it should."

Again, that depends on how the money is regulated.  For example, are the interest rates set such as to encourage savings or set to encourage spending.  The decentralized nature of p2p monetized networking, especially in an unsaturated market, is a little more complicated.

[Carlton Banks]

F. A. Hayek etc

Not interested in Hayek. He got things wrong, as did Mises.


In particular, Hayek was a massive hypocrite. One minute he's opining about the "Denationalisation of money" (a more candid appraisal would, of course, have been "De-gangsterisation of money"), the next he's walking through the door to 10 Downing Street alongside Margaret Thatcher.

attacking the character of the person who came up with is useless, and also a bit childish quite frankly. It has no bearing on whether or not it would make good currency.

The key component is that it is not *forced* upon anyone. Someone events it, and then if people like it, they use it, if they don't, they don't. The beauty of a free market is the open competition. Whatever works best will emerge as the most used. If this idea for a currency is not a good one, no worries good sir, it will fail and nobody will use it.

The actions of the author are at least as important as his elucidations. He talked the libertarian talk, but walked the fascist walk. With Maggie.

So it's no surprise that his thesis on removing government from the money supply involved the installation of a fascist one world currency, with the supply controlled by an elite. Because stable prices, lol.

installation of a fascist world currency? that would require the government make a single currency that we are all forced to use. the entire point of his book and the "Denationalization of Currency" is to take money out of the hands of the government and allow free market competition between currencies to reign. This idea is simply his idea of what would emerge in the free market as a currency stabilized not a central bank, but by the private issuer.

The supply control is not by "the elite" or "the government" but by the PROTOCOL OF THE DECENTRALIZED BLOCK CHAIN BASED COIN. come on now, i thought this was the Bitcoin forum? Of course I am talking about the issuance of a coin based on this model by a DAO with no central controller.

The protocol pegs to the basket of commodities and automatically and autonomously alters supply to stabilize without the need for a trusted central authority. I assumed that was already understood I apologize.

Who chooses the constitution of the basket of "representative" commodities? And Hayek had no reasonable ability to predict that any of this could be achieved using autonomous computer networks, so he can only have been advocating for centralised control of the money supply. Controlled by all the "right people", no doubt. Any more nonsense?

[DannyHamilton]

Let's say you have 50 copper denar and 10 gold denar and you need to buy a loaf of bread which is priced at 50 copper denar or 10 gold denar. Obviously you wouldn't use the 10 gold, and be left with 50 copper and piece of bread. You'd rather use the copper and be left with 10 gold and piece of bread.

Absolute nonsense.

If I can exchange 50 copper denar for 11 gold denar, then you'd have to be pretty daft to spend the 50 copper denar on the bread.  If you expect the exchange rate to be 50 copper denar for 11 gold denar in the near future, then you'd have to be pretty daft to spend the 50 copper denar on the bread.

If the exchange rate is currently 50 copper denar for 10 gold denar and you strongly believe that it will continue to be 50 copper denar for 10 gold denar for the foreseeable future, then it doesn't really matter at all which one you spend.

If people truly desire the gold denar more than the copper, then the exchange rate (and the price of merchandise) will reflect this.  The merchants will price their merchandise cheaper when spending gold denar so that they can acquire what they actually want (gold denar) without having to pay exchange fees.  The customer will benefit by spending the gold denar (since he'll get a price cheaper than spending copper), and the merchant will benefit (since he'll avoid paying exchange fees to acquire what he desires).

Of course we're talking in metaphors here, because the Romans didn't have the benefit of electronic exchange and a global marketplace for use and exchange of their currency.  As such there was a LOT more friction associated with such transactions than there is with bitcoin and federal reserve notes.

To answer the point you bring: why would you spend the time, and pay the fees, to convert your 50 copper into another 10 gold, and THEN spend that on the loaf of bread, when you can just spend the 50 copper on the bread directly?

Because you get paid on the first of the month, and you won't be buying the bread until the 20th of the month.  You don't want to hold WORTHLESS VALUE LOSING DEPRECIATING IN VALUE FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES for those 20 days, do you?

You'll be buying gasoline for your vehicle on the 29th of the month.

You'll be paying for your car insurance 3 months from now.

You'll be buying a sofa in 8 months.

Sure, if there are things that you KNOW that you'll spend money on in the next few days, you'll keep that as federal reserve notes, but all the rest of it you'll convert to bitcoin immediately upon receiving it. Since your employer will be encouraging their customers to pay with bitcoin (by offering better prices for the more desired currency), you'll negotiate to have most of your salary paid in bitcoins (so that both you and the employer can avoid the exchange fees).

[BellaBitBit]

I agree with what you say OP and nothing can stop Bitcoin except centralization but that is just not going to happen.  It was designed to avoid this and I think it will prevail once the devs agree on things.  The question of whether or not bitcoin or cryptos will survive or exist is non-existent anymore with over 8 billion as a market cap - the numbers don't lie and people and organizations are becoming more aware of digital currency and blockchain technology.  One day it won't even be a question - the next question will be how much of the world is using it.

[BitProdigy]

The actions of the author are at least as important as his elucidations. He talked the libertarian talk, but walked the fascist walk. With Maggie.

I do not agree that walking and talking with a Fascist equates to proposing and endorsing Fascism. The evidence I present is Hayeks entire body of work which probably one of the most relentless and persistent attacks on Fascism and government control that I have ever encountered.

you telling me he walked with Maggie does not alter his economic and philosophic contributions. Everything Hayek ever contributed to these fields works AGAINST fascism and objectively so!

The equivalent of your argument is to say that Einstein was entirely ignorant of mathematics and creationist anti-science bigot because I saw him waking and having a conversation with someone like that once….

Who chooses the constitution of the basket of "representative" commodities?

Do you know how a DOA works? Who chooses the price of a DAO's products? How chooses compensation for employees? Who makes any business decision in a DOA?

The initial decision of the basket of commodities is made by the developers of the protocol. If the users reach consensus that it must be changed to something else, a hard fork is required.

Who decides the block size of Bitcoin?

And Hayek had no reasonable ability to predict that any of this could be achieved using autonomous computer networks, so he can only have been advocating for centralised control of the money supply. Controlled by all the "right people", no doubt.

You are a victim of growing up in a world in which the state grants a monopoly of the issuance of currency to single group, and you are projecting that model onto this one unnecessarily.

Hayek's vision (having no way to foresee decentralized organization and crypto currencies  as trust less and without central authority) envisioned removing the state and governments from the money issuing business and leaving it up to the free market to make new moneys. Many different places, probably all banks, would issue their own currencies, along with the usual gold and silver, and from there the free market would decide which was best.

His model of pegging the issuance to a basket of commodities was simply a model he suggested would be best if it were tried. It is not a model he suggested the state should impose and force all of us to use and we cannot choose on our own to do nothing else. no no no no no my good man. let all the different kinds of money exist and compete, and lets choose what he like best.

Any more nonsense?

 

[Hugroll]

i kinda agree with your point of centralization being devastating for bitcoin,but i do believe that there are plenty of other things that can affect and destroy bitcoin. first thing that comes to mind is the pump and dump that bitcoin do, the volatility it causes makes tons of people leave bitcoin and also makes bitcoin look bad to newcomers.

[BitProdigy]

Absolute nonsense.

If I can exchange 50 copper denar for 11 gold denar, then you'd have to be pretty daft to spend the 50 copper denar on the bread.  If you expect the exchange rate to be 50 copper denar for 11 gold denar in the near future, then you'd have to be pretty daft to spend the 50 copper denar on the bread.

If the exchange rate is currently 50 copper denar for 11 gold denar and you strongly believe that it will continue to be 50 copper denar for 10 gold denar for the foreseeable future, then it doesn't really matter at all which one you spend.

If people truly desire the gold denar more than the copper, then the exchange rate (and the price of merchandise) will reflect this.  The merchants will price their merchandise cheaper when spending gold denar so that they can acquire what they actually want (gold denar) without having to pay exchange fees.  The customer will benefit by spending the gold denar (since he'll get a price cheaper than spending copper), and the merchant will benefit (since he'll avoid paying exchange fees to acquire what he desires).

Of course we're talking in metaphors here, because the Romans didn't have the benefit of electronic exchange and a global marketplace for use and exchange of their currency.  As such there was a LOT more friction associated with such transactions than there is with bitcoin and federal reserve notes.

What you've done here is gotten it completely backwards. If 50 copper is worth 10 gold today, and 50 copper is worth 11 gold tomorrow, what just happened? THE PRICE OF GOLD WENT DOWN, AND THE VALUE OF COPPER WENT UP.

You have completely reversed the conclusion by completely reversing the scenario. We were assuming that gold was "good" money and therefore going up in value, and copper was "bad" money and therefore going down in value. Now you have come in and said, "ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! IF COPPER IS GOING UP IN VALUE AND GOLD IS GOING DOWN IN VALUE, OBVIOUSLY I'D SPEND MY COPPER ON GOLD FIRST!"

Sure… i guess… maybe… but that is not what I was saying at all. If gold is "good" and copper is "bad", then I should expect that gold will be more valuable tomorrow than it is today, and I should expect that copper is less valuable then it is today. So if 50 copper is worth 10 gold today, then tomorrow 50 copper will only be worth 8 gold. See how you got that backwards?

Because you get paid on the first of the month, and you won't be buying the bread until the 20th of the month.  You don't want to hold WORTHLESS VALUE LOSING DEPRECIATING IN VALUE FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES for those 20 days, do you?

You'll be buying gasoline for your vehicle on the 29th of the month.

You'll be paying for your car insurance 3 months from now.

You'll be buying a sofa in 8 months.

Sure, if there are things that you KNOW that you'll spend money on in the next few days, you'll keep that as federal reserve notes, but all the rest of it you'll convert to bitcoin immediately upon receiving it. Since your employer will be encouraging their customers to pay with bitcoin (by offering better prices for the more desired currency), you'll negotiate to have most of your salary paid in bitcoins (so that both you and the employer can avoid the exchange fees).

Here is the main point of Grisham's Law: You want to spend your debased currency first and fastest. You want to hang on to your appreciating currency and not spend it, you want to hang on to it as it gets more and more valuable.

What you are suggesting is that all debased currency should immediately be exchanged for "good" money and then only the "good" money will be used. Yes that's one strategy, and would probably work if the government weren't' forcing the debased currency into use. Im just saying Bitcoin is made to hold value by design, if another currency that is made to hold stability and therefore become a Unit of Account by design, it would make sense that people would have their savings in Bitcoin, and their daily cash in the Unit of Account coin.

Different properties serve different functions and meet different needs. Bitcoin does not have to do everything.

[Carlton Banks]

The actions of the author are at least as important as his elucidations. He talked the libertarian talk, but walked the fascist walk. With Maggie.

you telling me he walked with Maggie does not alter his economic and philosophic contributions. Everything Hayek ever contributed to these fields works AGAINST fascism and objectively so!

The equivalent of your argument is to say that Einstein was entirely ignorant of mathematics and creationist anti-science bigot because I saw him waking and having a conversation with someone like that once….

No, Maggie used Hayek for a photo-opportunity and overall political endorsement of her gorvernment and her policies, that's what that walk was all about. That's how I know it happened at all: the media publicised it, as was the objective of the act.

Did Einstein walk and talk with religious people? Yes. Did he do walk and talks with religious people as a publicity stunt, tacitly approving all their actions?    

Who chooses the constitution of the basket of "representative" commodities?

Do you know how a DOA works? Who chooses the price of a DAO's products? How chooses compensation for employees? Who makes any business decision in a DOA?

The initial decision of the basket of commodities is made by the developers of the protocol. If the users reach consensus that it must be changed to something else, a hard fork is required.

Who decides the block size of Bitcoin?

Sorry, too subjective. Pricing blocks centrally is one thing, the dynamics of that can be computed.

His model of pegging the issuance to a basket of commodities was simply a model he suggested would be best if it were tried. It is not a model he suggested the state should impose and force all of us to use and we cannot choose on our own to do nothing else. no no no no no my good man. let all the different kinds of money exist and compete, and lets choose what he like best.

That is no adequate explanation for what Hayek intended as the mechanism to choose the commodity basket. You got through 3 paragraphs without even addressing the point (I removed the first 2 from this reply. Notice how the text I choose to reply to actually relates to the reply I wrote)

[Carlton Banks]

Here is the main point of Grisham's Law: You want to spend your debased currency first and fastest. You want to hang on to your appreciating currency and not spend it, you want to hang on to it as it gets more and more valuable.

What you are suggesting is that all debased currency should immediately be exchanged for "good" money and then only the "good" money will be used. Yes that's one strategy, and would probably work if the government weren't' forcing the debased currency into use.

Well, that's not the classical Gresham's Law at all. You're suggesting that government coercion plays the main role in breathing life into fiat currency... whoever would have guessed such a thing, lol

[BitProdigy]

In theory Gresham's Law works in reverse in the absence of coercion, and Hayek suggested private issuers who decided which commodities based on consumer choices, these were probably banks that issued the currency, and people would use whatever currency they liked best. If they didn't like the issuer that issued a money pegged to this basket of commodes, they would gravitate to an issuer that issued a money pegged to a different, better basket of commodities. Free market competition would ultimately decide.

[Carlton Banks]

In theory

In practice, Gresham Law is bullshit fiat propaganda, and Hayek was a fraud. But you keep on imagining, that's what's so fun about theory, proof is not a pre-requisite

[Hirose UK]

I like most of your statement.
Now the question is if the price is to the moon, then why we can't buy everyday needs like a coffe?
I don't get the point here. If the price is high, it's supposed to be used in every corner shop. CMIIW

[Kakmakr]

OP, so you saying the other technologies like SegWit and Side-chains will not improve the tech to such a degree that it will not only be used as a store of value, but also as a payment network? I do believe the road map of Bitcoin is paved with secondary options to allow for safer scalability and also improvements to extent it's function to include mainstream payment options. A Alt coin will not be necessary, if all the other things fall in place. I am not saying Alt coins will have no place in Crypto Currency, because that will be similar to saying the Yuan has no place in the fiat system, because the US Dollar should be the only reserve currency.

If Bitcoin cannot scale to accommodate a global payment network, it can be supplemented by other Alt coins or some side-chains. ^smile^