What would happen to Bitcoin if the World Echnomy went over to Bitcoins

[Possum]

Hi

The US Dollar is in serious trouble

See: http://udopage.com/news-articles-economics.php (Just some of my own Research)

What would happen if the Worlds economies all decided to use Bitcoins in place of the USD?

Could Bitcoins work in such volumes and what would the Value of a bitcoin be in this situation?

Thank you..

[joulesbeef]

The dollar is fine, it might have a slight cold but not even the flu, the death of the dollar has been exaggerated.

If bitcoin replaced the worlds currency, a lot of people would be screwed as they have no computers, though we an print bitcoins, it would take time to go over.

there is over 4 trillion dollars in circulation  there are 6842600 bitcoins, so each coin would be would be worth $580,000. Which means miners would find about 1.2billion every week, leading to a soaring crime rate in stolen ATI cards. Satoshi would instantly be the richest man that ever lived.

[Possum]

True, Not Everyone has a computer. But computers are everywhere. Whats the problem writing an application front end that turns your instance of Bitcoin into a local bank. Each customer has bitcoins or percentage of with a unique Bitcoin Number.

[istar]

According to this site:


http://money.howstuffworks.com/how-much-money-is-in-the-world.htm

In July 2009 could expect to find around $8.3 trillion in existence.
By now there should be even more and thats "only" USD...Thats back in 2009...

By now, it might be the double!

So thats each coin worth $2300,000.

Perhaps around 1/4th of the worlds money supply is kept in $?

So 4 x $2300,000 = $9200,000.

So if a bitcoins gets worth 1/1000 all the money in the world, each one would be worth around $9200.

And then there is gold...And not forget silver...

Makes $13 sound quite cheap...

[foggyb]

The dollar is fine, it might have a slight cold but not even the flu, the death of the dollar has been exaggerated.

What is the basis for your claim? The whole world is hearing that the US debt ceiling must be raised in order to prevent a default. Moody's is prepared to downgrade the US Dollar from AAA status (the first time in history this has happened). But you say the dollar is "fine". Hmmmm.

[evoorhees]

The whole world is hearing that the US debt ceiling must be raised in order to prevent a default.

This boggles my mind. How screwy is a world in which one's creditworthiness is maintained to the extent that one continues accumulating debt!!! The US must assume further debt to be considered more creditworthy? WTF?

[Nemesis099]

The whole world is hearing that the US debt ceiling must be raised in order to prevent a default.

This boggles my mind. How screwy is a world in which one's creditworthiness is maintained to the extent that one continues accumulating debt!!! The US must assume further debt to be considered more creditworthy? WTF?

This is because the US in theory does not need to default they could just print money but in doing so they create inflation which would hurt the economy.  Also the idea is that the GDP will outgrow the debt.

Think of it this way would it make sense for you to default on your credit cards or take out a home equity line of credit to pay them if times were tight?

[myrkul]

The dollar is fine, it might have a slight cold but not even the flu, the death of the dollar has been exaggerated.

What is the basis for your claim? The whole world is hearing that the US debt ceiling must be raised in order to prevent a default. Moody's is prepared to downgrade the US Dollar from AAA status (the first time in history this has happened). But you say the dollar is "fine". Hmmmm.

Beefy here has smelled of 'shill' since I saw their first post. The avatar doesn't help either.

[spruce]

If bitcoin replaced the worlds currency, a lot of people would be screwed as they have no computers, though we an print bitcoins, it would take time to go over.

there is over 4 trillion dollars in circulation  there are 6842600 bitcoins, so each coin would be would be worth $580,000. Which means miners would find about 1.2billion every week, leading to a soaring crime rate in stolen ATI cards. Satoshi would instantly be the richest man that ever lived.

Per this Wikipedia article, "According to the Bank for International Settlements, the total outstanding notional amount is US$684 trillion (as of June 2008)."

Apportioning $685 trillion among 6.85 million bitcoins works out at $100,000,000 per bitcoin.

-----

Micropayments in 3rd world countries are widely done using mobile phones (and not smart phones). See the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_payment and this PDF report: http://www.infodev.org/en/Document.43.html

[flug]

So thats each coin worth $2300,000.

So the miners will be mining $690,000,000 per hour, and spending a good proportion of that on power.

[flug]

If bitcoin replaced the worlds currency, a lot of people would be screwed as they have no computers

Smartphones

[spruce]

If bitcoin replaced the worlds currency, a lot of people would be screwed as they have no computers

Smartphones

Not needed. Regular prepaid cheapo dumb mobiles will work just fine. Google it. There's a long PDF report at http://www.infodev.org/en/Document.43.html detailing one study of use of mobiles for micropayments in the Philippines.

The infrastructure for doing this with bitcoins obviously doesn't exist yet, but I don't see why it couldn't. The *end-user* wouldn't need to have the full wallet functionality on his dumb phone, just as long as the carrier does somehow. All the end-user would need is the ability to send a text message saying pay ___ to ___, and the carrier would do the actual bitcoin transaction and deduct the relevant amount (plus fee) from the user's mobile credit, and credit the payee's mobile credit. Actually, I guess they do that anyway without involving bitcoins at all. I suppose the only need to involve bitcoins would be when the user and payee aren't on the same carrier network.

[Anduril]

You can't even convince a few sites to accept Bitcoins now, how are you going to convince the world to move to Bitcoins?

The level of delusion on this board is sometimes staggering.

[myrkul]

The level of delusion on this board is sometimes staggering.

So is the number of trolls.

[Anduril]

The level of delusion on this board is sometimes staggering.

So is the number of trolls.

Oh yes, I forget that anyone who doesn't toe the party line here is a troll...

Come on, it is a silly question, Bitcoin cannot survive if what people see when they come in to research are silly comments like that one. BTC (or more likely another type of crypto-currency) might emerge as an alternative payment method, but it won't take over the entire world's economy, this is not only an unrealistic goal, it fails to recognise how economies work.

[myrkul]

Oh yes, I forget that anyone who doesn't toe the party line here is a troll...

Come on, it is a silly question, Bitcoin cannot survive if what people see when they come in to research are silly comments like that one. BTC (or more likely another type of crypto-currency) might emerge as an alternative payment method, but it won't take over the entire world's economy, this is not only an unrealistic goal, it fails to recognise how economies work.

Silly question or not, speculation is fun. And seeing as how this is a bitcoin board, coming on here to knock on bitcoin and say how awful it is... yeah, that's trolling.

[flug]

Silly question or not, speculation is fun.

Yeah

[Anduril]

Silly question or not, speculation is fun. And seeing as how this is a bitcoin board, coming on here to knock on bitcoin and say how awful it is... yeah, that's trolling.

So, only people who are in favour are welcome here? I find the concept of Bitcoin fascinating and interesting, that's why I'm here. It is fun to read so many clueless comments and comment on them from time to time. To point out the utter silliness of such statements is not trolling.

Honestly, I have never seen any place anywhere on the Internet where the term "troll" is abused so much. It has become synonymous here with "BTC skeptic", and that is not what it means. It means someone making false comments with the intention to deceive. To disagree with the majority is not trolling. It is discussion.

[myrkul]

Honestly, I have never seen any place anywhere on the Internet where the term "troll" is abused so much. It has become synonymous here with "BTC skeptic", and that is not what it means. It means someone making false comments with the intention to deceive. To disagree with the majority is not trolling. It is discussion.

Skeptic: I'm not convinced BTC is the best new thing.

Troll: Bitcoin is shit. Why are you using it?

[flug]

The level of delusion on this board is sometimes staggering.

That's inflammatory. It came out of nowhere and totally changed the mood of this thread. That's trolling.