How does a country fully adopt Bitcoin?

[crumbs]

Well:

1. Buy some BTC.
2. Announce conversion date 2 yrs in advance.
3. Educate public (no tax breaks for mining wtf does that help??)
4. Give BTC for old currency at a set (favorable) rate.

I think it would be insanely profitable for a country to do this.

But wouldn't that mean that just upon announcement, the value of fiat will instantly plummet? I just don't see the the incentive for bitcoin sellers to this country.  

1. Your scenario's 1 and 2 happens
2. I sell bitcoins for their fiat..
3. I hold the country's fiat that they do not wish to hold, seeing as they want btc
4.
5. broke

1. They have to buy some BTC using $$$ or euros or by selling gold. If you sell the CB some BTC you get hard currency back.
2. For their people they guarantee a conversion rate for their old dying fiat. i.e. xxx old fiat for 1 BTC.

 It's do-able. Lots of detail, but doable.

2.  For the people, they guarantee 1 BTC for for X deprecated fiat.
3.  Sellers of BTC bump BTC ask price to >X, knowing that this time, profit is assured.
       3a. Having sold 1 BTC for 2 X, they convert each X  to 1 BTC, for 2 BTC total (capitalising on the government guarantee).  Rinse & repeat.
4.  ? ? ?
5.  broke.

Alternate take:
  
2.  Let's assume the government is clever, and only converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.
3.  Sellers of BTC are also not stupid, quickly catching on that bills with red "VOID" aren't the same as unvoided bills, since the also not stupid storekeepers won't take them.  The Greater Fool paradigm instantly runs out of greater fools, voided bills are worthless for anything but paying taxes, and are sold for pennies on the dollar.  
    3a.  Bitcoin sellers jack BBTC price sky-high.
4.  ? ? ?
5.  Back to the first version.

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[solex]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

[crumbs]

Please understand that the very thing that makes fiat worth less (monetary inflation) also makes more money (monetary inflation).  If a gallon of milk costs me twice as much as it did before, but there's twice as much money to buy it, nothing has changed (other than i now owe exactly half as much as i used to -- PROFIT!).

Yeah, you say that until you want to save for a rainy day ie retirement.

I could only hope that you're not saving for retirement by stuffing your mattress with bills *now.*  Please, at least stick them in a savings account where they will accrue *interest.*  Interest allows you to save (remain static) in an inflationary system.  One of the reasons inflation is so darn attractive is it discourages hoarding & encourages *investment."   Flux is life!

[crumbs]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

Wait, The government buys your bitcoins, gives you dollars in exchange and then takes them away from you and incinerates them  What are you left with after such a successful transaction?  Why would you do something as patently silly?

[solex]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

Wait, The government buys your bitcoins, gives you dollars in exchange and then takes them away from you and incinerates them???  What are you left with after such a successful transaction?  Why would you do something as patently silly?

There are 2 fiats: USD and XXX.
USD is used to buy BTC in the market and then that BTC is used to buy currency XXX which is incinerated. All the people who used to have XXX now have BTC instead.

[crumbs]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

Wait, The government buys your bitcoins, gives you dollars in exchange and then takes them away from you and incinerates them???  What are you left with after such a successful transaction?  Why would you do something as patently silly?

There are 2 fiats: USD and XXX.
USD is used to buy BTC in the market and then that BTC is used to buy currency XXX which is incinerated. All the holders who used to have XXX now have BTC instead.

Not sure i'm following.  Does the XXX currency have any value to begin with, i.e. is it convertible to $$$?  If it is, what's the point of the shell game?  Simply exchange the XXX to $$$ for this hypothetical, so we can deal with a single variable

Edit:  Assume 1x = n$, and take it from there.

[solex]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

Wait, The government buys your bitcoins, gives you dollars in exchange and then takes them away from you and incinerates them???  What are you left with after such a successful transaction?  Why would you do something as patently silly?

There are 2 fiats: USD and XXX.
USD is used to buy BTC in the market and then that BTC is used to buy currency XXX which is incinerated. All the holders who used to have XXX now have BTC instead.

Not sure i'm following.  Does the XXX currency have any value to begin with, i.e. is it convertible to $$$?  If it is, what's the point of the shell game?  Simply exchange the XXX to $$$ for this hypothetical, so we can deal with a single variable

XXX is the currency of the small country which wants to switch-over to Bitcoin. XXX is convertible to $$$ but the country wants a BTC economy not a $$$ economy. So it uses its $$$ holdings to acquire BTC which it can then use to replace the XXX. That is the point of the exercise, a change to a new (and better) currency.

[vokain]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

Wait, The government buys your bitcoins, gives you dollars in exchange and then takes them away from you and incinerates them???  What are you left with after such a successful transaction?  Why would you do something as patently silly?

There are 2 fiats: USD and XXX.
USD is used to buy BTC in the market and then that BTC is used to buy currency XXX which is incinerated. All the holders who used to have XXX now have BTC instead.

Not sure i'm following.  Does the XXX currency have any value to begin with, i.e. is it convertible to $$$?  If it is, what's the point of the shell game?  Simply exchange the XXX to $$$ for this hypothetical, so we can deal with a single variable

XXX is the currency of the small country which wants to switch-over to Bitcoin. XXX is convertible to $$$ but the country wants a BTC economy not a $$$ economy. So it uses its $$$ holdings to acquire BTC which it can then use to replace the XXX. That is the point of the exercise, a change to a new (and better) currency.

anyone that purchases XXX will be shittttttty

[crumbs]

Well:

1. Buy some BTC.
2. Announce conversion date 2 yrs in advance.
3. Educate public (no tax breaks for mining wtf does that help??)
4. Give BTC for old currency at a set (favorable) rate.

I think it would be insanely profitable for a country to do this.

1.  Spend $$$ on buying bitcoins from original holders.
2.  Spend BTCBTCBTC to buy back the $$$ from your slick deal (you have promised to buy up $$$ for BTCBTCBTC at a favorable rate, the guys who sold you bitcoins now hold those dollars, which you have to buy back at a loss )
3.  Run out of $$$ before you're even out of the gate.
4. ? ? ?
5.  And you don't even hold all the *any* bitcoins. (you have spent all of the BTCBTCBTC buying back the $$$ from the bitcoin sellers like you have promised, at a premium ) (edited for clarity)
  

[crumbs]

...converts each note once by scribbling "VOID" on the face of each bill in permanent red marker.

Yes. That's it and then the CB incinerates the old currency so there is no chance of it re-entering circulation.

Wait, The government buys your bitcoins, gives you dollars in exchange and then takes them away from you and incinerates them???  What are you left with after such a successful transaction?  Why would you do something as patently silly?

There are 2 fiats: USD and XXX.
USD is used to buy BTC in the market and then that BTC is used to buy currency XXX which is incinerated. All the holders who used to have XXX now have BTC instead.

Not sure i'm following.  Does the XXX currency have any value to begin with, i.e. is it convertible to $$$?  If it is, what's the point of the shell game?  Simply exchange the XXX to $$$ for this hypothetical, so we can deal with a single variable

XXX is the currency of the small country which wants to switch-over to Bitcoin. XXX is convertible to $$$ but the country wants a BTC economy not a $$$ economy. So it uses its $$$ holdings to acquire BTC which it can then use to replace the XXX. That is the point of the exercise, a change to a new (and better) currency.

Are you assuming that a country's CB holds enough $$$ assets to back its currency?
Edit:  You just ran into a very common misunderstanding about money -- that somewhere, there's another pile of money, of equal value, backing it up

[solex]

anyone that purchases XXX will be shittttttty

Only the CB which issued XXX in the first place will be buying it for BTC once the changeover is announced.

Are you assuming that a country's CB holds enough $$$ assets to back its currency?

This is the beauty of the whole idea right now. BTC is cheap today so any CB would have $50 million (which is CB pocket money) it could use for its BTC purchase, That would get it a few hundred thousand coins. Then the CB needs to wait until the value of BTC rises so that its coin holdings are equal to its monetary base. Then it can change over from its rubbish old fiat currency to a super-strong currency of the future.

Only a few countries will be able do this before the value of BTC will go too high for them to get such a one-time gain.

[vokain]

anyone that purchases XXX will be shittttttty

Only the CB which issued XXX in the first place will be buying it for BTC once the changeover is announced.

what?

CB: trade XXX for USD
CB: USD for BTC

the person holding XXX is screwed!

[crumbs]

anyone that purchases XXX will be shittttttty

Only the CB which issued XXX in the first place will be buying it for BTC once the changeover is announced.

Are you assuming that a country's CB holds enough $$$ assets to back its currency?

This is the beauty of the whole idea right now. BTC is cheap today so any CB would have $50 million (which is CB pocket money) it could use for its BTC purchase, That would get it a few hundred thousand coins. Then the CB needs to wait until the value of BTC rises so that its coin holdings are equal to its monetary base. Then it can change over from its rubbish old fiat currency to a super-strong currency of the future.

Only a few countries will be able do this before the value of BTC will go too high for them to get such a one-time gain.

If your whole example revolves around BTC being cheap at the moment, two objections:

1.  Why go through all the complexities of buying x for y etc., if what you're doing is simply snapping up bitcoins?  You're still incurring losses, only you consider them to be nominal.  Once the word gets out that you (a country) are buying up bitcoin, the prices will (appropriately) skyrocket, the losses will not be nominal.

2.  If you are planning to make each bitcoin worth more than you have bought it for, the bitcoins still out in the wild, and those to be yet produced, will be similarly valuated, further debasing your currency (if you buy only one bitcoin, for instance, and substitute it for your entire currency (dealing in microfractions)), Joe Shmoe will be able to collapse your economy with his single bitcoin

There's more, but this is plenty.
  

[solex]

anyone that purchases XXX will be shittttttty

Only the CB which issued XXX in the first place will be buying it for BTC once the changeover is announced.

what?

CB: trade XXX for USD
CB: USD for BTC

the person holding XXX is screwed!

No. The CB issuing XXX uses its existing USD holdings to buy BTC. Then buys XXX for BTC.
Persons with XXX now have BTC. Not screwed, the opposite in fact, happier.

two objections:
1.  Why go through all the complexities of buying x for y etc., if what you're doing is simply snapping up bitcoins?  You're still incurring losses, only you consider them to be nominal.  Once the word gets out that you (a country) are buying up bitcoin, the prices will (appropriately) skyrocket, the losses will not be nominal.

It helps if it is a secret CB project until the coins are acquired!

2.  If you are planning to make each bitcoin worth more than you have bought it for, the bitcoins still out in the wild, and those to be yet produced, will be similarly valuated, further debasing your currency (if you buy only one bitcoin, for instance, and substitute it for your entire currency (dealing in microfractions)), Joe Shmoe will be able to collapse your economy with his single bitcoin

Only market values are important. If Bitcoin never reaches the required value then the $$$ spent are merely invested in BTC, the currency conversion does not proceed. Shmoe is irrelevant, all boats float the same on the same tide.

[vokain]

anyone that purchases XXX will be shittttttty

Only the CB which issued XXX in the first place will be buying it for BTC once the changeover is announced.

what?

CB: trade XXX for USD
CB: USD for BTC

the person holding XXX is screwed!

No. The CB issuing XXX uses its existing USD holdings to buy BTC. Then buys XXX for BTC.
Persons with XXX now have BTC. Not screwed, the opposite in fact, happier.

Ohh, the idea of preexisting USD holdings was not intuitive to me

[crumbs]

...No. The CB issuing XXX uses its existing USD holdings to buy BTC. Then buys XXX for BTC.
Persons with XXX now have BTC. Not screwed, the opposite in fact, happier.

Ohh, the idea of preexisting USD holdings was not intuitive to me

See my reply about FX reserves etc.

Edit:  For simplicity's sake, why not just buy up the XXX for the USD holdings, burn the XXX & take it from there, using only the $$$ as a variable? What is functionally different?

[molecular]

If I would suggest some countries going Bitcoin, I would suggest some little country, with little to lose abandoning the US$ or the €.
Maybe an island like St.Kitt & Nevis, Dominica, Panama, etc.

cyprus?

[Fugger]

Do they say hey, we're exchanging all our fiat for a lump sum in BTC? They couldn't because what would the BTC sellers use the fiat for? What steps would a country have to take to fully adopt Bitcoin as the primary trade medium? I'd deduce that once an area uses accepts bitcoin as local commerce and only charges bitcoin to export their own products, that bitcoin will truly make it. I'm a bit iffy on the process though.

There would need to be a transition period. If the switch was done within one day the BTC price would skyrocket, even if it was a small economy.

Since the government of a country owns all money (through the central bank), the government would have to take it back. Or to be more concrete buy the fiat money back. In order to do this, the government would need to purchase enough BTC. Therefore I think the process would take quite long. Once a large entity announces it is going to buy a large number of BTC - and since the quantity of money in a given economy is publicly known, everybody would have a good estimate about the amount of BTC to be purchased - the BTC price would skyrocket simply as a result of this announcement. Think of of it as the announcement of a corporate takeover. When the public knows, that one company is going to buy another, everybody wants shares of the target because they know the price is going up.

So the process would have to be slow and the announcements very cautious.

[vokain]

I think it's best to just let the free market work this one out

[Fugger]

I think it's best to just let the free market work this one out

Think so, too! Then if you have a transition it will probably be at a pace which is acceptable for everyone. Bitcoin is bottom-up and so should be its adoption.