what if btc takes over €/$ ?

[FreeMoney]

isn't this part of what people want?

how will our economy work then and how do we justify some people hoarding thousands of btc for doing nothing?

if all 21 mil coins equaled the current amount of $ in the developed countries, 1 bitcoin would equal $ 10 mil.

i don't understand. this no work.

How exactly can you hoard bitcoins without doing anything?

[Spaceman_Spiff]

USD just lost 20% of its value in the past week.

I hope you realize this is wrong...

[grondilu]

maybe, but would i want people to have hoarded thousands of these? they didn't work for them, just speculated and were there early. society just won't allow that.

Speculators are not just throwing money randomly everywhere.  They try to see what the future will be like, usually with a rational analysis.  By doing so, they propagate price information in the market and this price information has a lot of economics value.  It is basically intelligence that can be exploited by economics agents in order to foresee what will be the future needs and trends.

[Malcode]

There just isn't enough acceptance of Bitcoins to make it a mainstream currency. Whenever you're buying or selling something with Bitcoins what do you do? Go to an exchanger to know how much USD it's worth. I can't pay my rent with Bitcoins, buy food, pay my bills... you get the picture. It will just never happen.

[nebiki]

yeah, i already gave up on this topic. what should have been discussed here is actually what if, not how it currently is.

[sublime5447]

isn't this part of what people want?

how will our economy work then and how do we justify some people hoarding thousands of btc for doing nothing?

if all 21 mil coins equaled the current amount of $ in the developed countries, 1 bitcoin would equal $ 10 mil.

i don't understand. this no work.

How exactly can you hoard bitcoins without doing anything?

You are the one with the name freemoney maybe you should tell us. Maybe not by doing nothing, but very little. Early adapter mines thousands and hoards.
Does next to nothing and gets rich. That is an unjust system. LTC adoption will change it.

[grondilu]

Does next to nothing and gets rich. That is an unjust system. LTC adoption will change it.

Freemoney can not buy anything from you since you don't value bitcoin.  He can only get value from his bitcoins by selling them or buying goods and services from people who willingly accept to give that much value into bitcoins.  So it's really not unjust in any way.

As for LTC (litecoin iirc?), I don't know much about this thing but if you think it's better than bitcoin for whatever reason, go for it.

[Mike Christ]

Well.  This thread escalated quickly.

People, please, these are questions that have been asked quite a number of times.  Gestas, Vince; why not research how Bitcoin works before asking remedial questions?  Better yet, research how the dollar works, and why every question presented could've been answered by Google.  There is nothing in this world which has known omnipotence from day one.  There was a day when today's standard American dollar wasn't even a twinkle in Uncle Sam's eye.  Bitcoin has been alive for a measly 3, 4 years?  Can't you see beyond the nose on your face?

[chris200x9]

You cant buy anything with BTC, it's only valuable because people can cash it out to fiat once the transaction is done with and can pay their rent/buy food, etc

http://pizzaforcoins.com

Enough with this pizza bullshit. Ok we get it you can buy pizza. What are you all fucking diabetics?

Apparently a currency is only worth something if you can buy food with it.

A currency is pretty worthless if you cant buy the basic necessities of life with it.

Correction: A currency is worthless when no one wants it. If people want bitcoin, we'll be able to exchange it for anything, soon enough.

People buy the basics with credit cards every day. There is absolutely no reason we couldn't do that with a credit-card sized electronic bitcoin wallet (already being worked on).

why would your average consumer ever want to use bitcoins? Irreversible charges and 10 minute transaction times along with having to pay the transaction fee are hardly attractive.

This. I don't get it people bitch about paypal's fees but bitcoin has fees too, sure it's a VERY small fee but if bitcoin really takes off the fee would just be insane 10m *0.0005 = 5K

[Spaceman_Spiff]

You are the one with the name freemoney maybe you should tell us. Maybe not by doing nothing, but very little. Early adapter mines thousands and hoards.
Does next to nothing and gets rich. That is an unjust system. LTC adoption will change it.

How is LTC different in this regard?  Do you think litecoin is more fair?  The average person has not heard about bitcoin, let alone litecoin. Think the people mining litecoin now are not early adopters just the same?  Aren't they going to be rich for doing nothing just the same should litecoin become successful?

[hashman]

 how do we justify some people hoarding thousands of btc for doing nothing?

good point.  sounds exactly like what people do with USD or EUR.  so what's the bit deal you might ask?

simple answer:  you can't counterfeit the BTC / fraudulently create them

[Skrivitor]

Back to what if BTC took on mainstream fiat:

There are $1.16 trillion USD in circulation (http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm).  In contrast there are roughly 10 million bitcoin in existence(http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc).
If nothing changed today (no inflation or growth) a bitcoin would need to be roughly worth one million times more than it already is to replace USD globally.  Of course this is a huge over simplification because in the processes a lot of factors would change.

The bottom line is bitcoin is still in beta and nobody really knows how this game will play out.  The market incentives in my view are pointed towards holding BTC, investing in BTC(to encourage distributed ASIC mining, and BTC business - full disclosure I have holdings), and mining until the difficulty pushes my hardware out of profitability.  Once the fractional value of bitcoin is approximately $1/mBTC I believe the free market will widely adopt BTC, however the oil-dollar has more solid footing now than it ever has; basically BTC will need to be adopted to trade a commodity greater than oil (I think it will be information).  Now please tell me all the ways I am wrong, which seems to be the point of these forums lately.

[Vernon715]

You cant buy anything with BTC, it's only valuable because people can cash it out to fiat once the transaction is done with and can pay their rent/buy food, etc

http://pizzaforcoins.com

Cool I always wanted to pay a large fee so someone else could order from dominos with their credit card instead of just using my credit card because ?

Keeping cash reserves in a currency losing value to buy that pizza just cost you double the cost of the pizza.

You dont have a cash reserve when you use a credit, I'm buying that Pizza with debt which I will pay for with money that I made at my job. Left over savings are invested wisely to counteract the effects of inflation.

P.S. USD inflation is incredibly low and I dont have to worry about prices going from $30 to $5 overnight.

If you don't like btc, why are you here?

[Skrivitor]

If you don't like btc, why are you here?

I couldn't agree more, why is there so much negativity in this thread?
tipped.

[painlord2k]

What would happen if Bitcoin become the dominant, reserve currency on the market?

Nothing.

Apart politicians would not be able to steal purchasing power from the fiat currencies held by the working people using the printing presses to print money for themselves and their supporters.
Without the printing presses, they would be forced to tax or borrow from the public.
But if the tax they will be hated and if the borrow they will be hit immediately by rising interest rates. The current interest rates are unsustainable without the Fed. running the printing presses at full speed to keep them at this low levels.
It would be the end of profligate spending by politicians to keep people on the dole (to vote for them), to finance stupid projects, to make stupid wars, etc.

There will be higher interest rates, so people will be interested in saving more, delaying consumption, investing only in really high return projects (no stupid solar panels, windmills, and likes).
Without money the government will not be able to finance the War on Drugs and other stupid wars like the War on Terror.
Instead of focusing on winning hearts and minds they will stay real and will focus on splatting skulls and chests (cheaper, faster, surest).

Prices for stuff like homes and other will fall as interest rates will raise. People will pay a house full in cash or with a small loan. They will not be serf for 30 years to the bank.

Just little things like these, nothing more.

[rpietila]

+1 It is for posts like THIS that the "donate" links are put on the signatures.

What would happen if Bitcoin become the dominant, reserve currency on the market?

Nothing.

Apart politicians would not be able to steal purchasing power from the fiat currencies held by the working people using the printing presses to print money for themselves and their supporters.
Without the printing presses, they would be forced to tax or borrow from the public.
But if the tax they will be hated and if the borrow they will be hit immediately by rising interest rates. The current interest rates are unsustainable without the Fed. running the printing presses at full speed to keep them at this low levels.
It would be the end of profligate spending by politicians to keep people on the dole (to vote for them), to finance stupid projects, to make stupid wars, etc.

There will be higher interest rates, so people will be interested in saving more, delaying consumption, investing only in really high return projects (no stupid solar panels, windmills, and likes).
Without money the government will not be able to finance the War on Drugs and other stupid wars like the War on Terror.
Instead of focusing on winning hearts and minds they will stay real and will focus on splatting skulls and chests (cheaper, faster, surest).

Prices for stuff like homes and other will fall as interest rates will raise. People will pay a house full in cash or with a small loan. They will not be serf for 30 years to the bank.

Just little things like these, nothing more.

[Walter Rothbard]

People hoarding would have no affect on your ability to make a purchase using Bitcoin.

maybe, but would i want people to have hoarded thousands of these? they didn't work for them, just speculated and were there early.

Yes, they did work for them.

[Vernon715]

If BTC took over, budgets would be balanced by default.

[Walter Rothbard]

If BTC took over, budgets would be balanced by default.

Because they wouldn't be able to get a loan on bitcoin talk's newbie forum, either!

[mestar]

Once the fractional value of bitcoin is approximately $1/mBTC I believe the free market will widely adopt BTC

Is that before or after the point when Bitcoin mining uses all the worlds energy output?