Monero Economy

[Johnny Mnemonic]

If Monero was accepted as having similar characteristics to gold, would you see these promises manifesting outside of the blockchain, or as a part of it? I could send someone a certain amount of gold, or I could issue a promise that their gold (ex: Monero) will be ready to be placed in their hands on demand. I've imagined an infrastructure, like banking, that can be built on top of Monero .. specifically utilizing the tx_extra field (or perhaps not, as it may be better utilized in things like recurring monthly payments). I'm unaware of how this could come together, or if "banking" is even the correct word for what I'm trying to describe. Your mentioning of certificate issuance indicates, to me, that you are of a similar opinion.

The great thing about crypto is that there are no need for promises. Cryptocoins have proof (Proof of Work). That's far better than any promise. Proof of work is what makes gold (or any commodity money in existense for that matter) valuable. Excluding fiat, all money from the beginning of time had proof of work in some form or another. The mere presence of gold is proof that someone, somewhere, put it real effort to obtain it. Proof of work is the most basic form of intrinsic value.

A certificate is a promise that such proof exists. As mentioned upthread, this was important for trade, as paper money (promise) is much easier to carry and store than heavy gold coins (proof). However, as I already stated, promises can, and will be, abused:

Gold certificates are actually a great example of deteriorating value to achieve volume. Goldsmiths learned very early that they could print many more certificates than they actually had gold to back up, because such few people ever bothered to redeem them. This kind of debasement was an early form of fractional reserve banking, and one of the first steps toward ultra-high volume trade.

Again though, such a promise is unnecessary in crypto, as the proof is right there in the coin.

[1714769449]

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[smooth]

How would you see payments from pool wallets direct to exchanges? That was a major part, along with the API, that I saw busoni in IRC talking about. Granted when one usually sends money this way -- it's for dumping onto the market .. but people are losing money either way and telling them to send to their personal wallets first is just an extra nuisance that can be figured out with code.

I'm not sure I follow exactly, but the way most exchange deposits (and web wallets, and merchant payments, etc, etc.) work with other coin types s that each user has his own deposit address(es). When you sent to that address it is credited to your account on the exchange. This is done by the exchange by creating a new address for each user (using a relatively lightweight wallet API) and then storing that address in a database.

The cryptonote coins don't have a wallet with multiple addresses. Each wallet has three files and one address. There isn't an API to create a new address, nor one to create an entirely new wallet. So integration with the above model is problematic.

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

A redesigned wallet with a proper database of addresses and a corresponding API would solve this problem. It is going to come up again and again with every type of service that wants to receive payments from customers, especially those that are already designed around the address-per-customer model that is universally used in crypto outside cryptonote. So it needs to be fixed.

A correlation I might see here is how would one setup automatic monthly payments without the usage of something like the tx_id field? I would hope this could be totally outside of the blockchain for numerous reasons, but by what route would it manifest? Moreover, with previous posts in this thread regarding this as a store of value or a currency .. do we even view a scenario where automated payments happening as possible?

Not sure what you mean by automatic? Are you thinking of some kind of autonomous agent or something else?

[canonsburg]

The cryptonote coins don't have a wallet with multiple addresses. Each wallet has three files and one address. There isn't an API to create a new address, nor one to create an entirely new wallet. So integration with the above model is problematic.

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

Isn't this extraordinarily risky? This could be another Mt. Gox all over again.

[smooth]

The cryptonote coins don't have a wallet with multiple addresses. Each wallet has three files and one address. There isn't an API to create a new address, nor one to create an entirely new wallet. So integration with the above model is problematic.

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

Isn't this extraordinarily risky? This could be another Mt. Gox all over again.

Nothing says they keep all the coins in that wallet, but as for risky, I consider all these crypto exchanges risky. No real oversight or transparency. Some or more trustworthy than others, but as hard as it is to believe some otherwise intelligent people were saying that about MtGox right up until the time it failed. I advise extreme caution.

[aminorex]

My advice to large holders and miners considering dumping:  If the chart is not making higher lows and higher highs, hold.  If you must sell, don't pee in your own pool:  Sell OTC, at whatever discount to market is necessary to get a buyer, if you must sell perforce.  Rising price attracts buyers, which helps to build the coin by creating dispersion, and therefore an incentive for merchants to accept the coin, as well as making it more attractive to buy-and-hold investors who relieve oversupply.  If the uptrend appears unsustainable, try to cool it a bit by dumping gradually.  Try not to make a hard ceiling with a large limit order, because price tends to bounce off of that and reverse down.  The downtrends can be quite severe, and last a long time, when supply is imbalanced.  

If the collective social intelligence of the miners and large sellers is good enough to accomplish it, I think the ideal would be for no low to be lower than the previous low, and for at least every third high to be a new ATH.  That would probably roughly optimal, in that it would tend to prevent unsustainable ramps ending in deep crashes, discourage some speculators, encourage long-term investors and merchants.  Don't chase DRK prices or you will meet DRK's end.  Instead seek to defeat DRK in terms of stable appreciation, Sharpe ratio, if you will.  So far it is following such a path remarkably well, since the initial liquidity event of exchange listing finished playing out at 0.0026.

I think issuance is too high for price stability to come naturally in this phase, before adoption, and, as a hobby miner, I would prefer less reward on a coin which is worth more, and especially, on one that is worth more in the long run.  The potential is massive.  Leadership is here, now, and seizing the top billing from DRK is quite feasible, even likely, and that, my friends, is the brass ring.  The best way to improve the issuance situation would be to increase the block time.

I see the competitive situation as a contest between MRO and DRK for a massive niche in the global economy.  One which might well prove larger than BTC's niche.  You do NOT want to mess that one up.  Yes the tech is better, but people are not necessarily that clever.  I plan to work on ease of privacy use myself, as an investment in a better future for all of mankind, and for my progeny.

[SlyWax]

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

A redesigned wallet with a proper database of addresses and a corresponding API would solve this problem. It is going to come up again and again with every type of service that wants to receive payments from customers, especially those that are already designed around the address-per-customer model that is universally used in crypto outside cryptonote. So it needs to be fixed.

I don't see the problem with Payment ID, since you can ask the site to change it each time you make a new transaction. Ok it could be a problem for direct pool payment if you wanted to separate/anonymise all your pool payment. But otherwise, the pool can provide an option for the miners to enter the ID.

A question :
Is the payment ID encrypted in the blockchain or is it readable to anyone ?

[smooth]

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

A redesigned wallet with a proper database of addresses and a corresponding API would solve this problem. It is going to come up again and again with every type of service that wants to receive payments from customers, especially those that are already designed around the address-per-customer model that is universally used in crypto outside cryptonote. So it needs to be fixed.

I don't see the problem with Payment ID, since you can ask the site to change it each time you make a new transaction. Ok it could be a problem for direct pool payment if you wanted to separate/anonymise all your pool payment. But otherwise, the pool can provide an option for the miners to enter the ID.

It's not needed and is bloat, and see below. If you want it changed it each time, then you can't use it for pool payments. That's exactly what regular MRO addresses are for! (i.e. "Unlinkable payments") They are changed each time and prevent linking of payments.

A question :
Is the payment ID encrypted in the blockchain or is it readable to anyone ?

It is readable by anyone. You can literally read them right in the block explorer. The exchange can encrypt the contents of the payment ID, but there is nothing to require them to do so. I know in one case they are being generated using sequential numbers. What other information is leaked is hard to say.

It's fine as a temporary workaround but really not a good design.

[giveBTCpls]

Moon ero

[SlyWax]

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

A redesigned wallet with a proper database of addresses and a corresponding API would solve this problem. It is going to come up again and again with every type of service that wants to receive payments from customers, especially those that are already designed around the address-per-customer model that is universally used in crypto outside cryptonote. So it needs to be fixed.

I don't see the problem with Payment ID, since you can ask the site to change it each time you make a new transaction. Ok it could be a problem for direct pool payment if you wanted to separate/anonymise all your pool payment. But otherwise, the pool can provide an option for the miners to enter the ID.

It's not needed and is bloat, and see below. If you want it changed it each time, then you can't use it for pool payments. That's exactly what regular MRO addresses are for! (i.e. "Unlinkable payments") They are changed each time and prevent linking of payments.

A question :
Is the payment ID encrypted in the blockchain or is it readable to anyone ?

It is readable by anyone. You can literally read them right in the block explorer. The exchange can encrypt the contents of the payment ID, but there is nothing to require them to do so. I know in one case they are being generated using sequential numbers. What other information is leaked is hard to say.

It's fine as a temporary workaround but really not a good design.

Yes, payment ID should have been encrypted .
But as you said exchange or merchant could decide to accept encrypted payment ID.
You would just have to encrypt it with the same public key of the merchant, and maybe add a flag to say it's encrypted.

I think the reason it's not a good idea to have a new address for each merchant client is that the merchant would have to scan the blockchain for each of its client address, and that would take to much time.

[Keyboard-Mash]

The great thing about crypto is that there are no need for promises. Cryptocoins have proof (Proof of Work). That's far better than any promise. Proof of work is what makes gold (or any commodity money in existense for that matter) valuable. Excluding fiat, all money from the beginning of time had proof of work in some form or another. The mere presence of gold is proof that someone, somewhere, put it real effort to obtain it. Proof of work is the most basic form of intrinsic value.

A certificate is a promise that such proof exists. As mentioned upthread, this was important for trade, as paper money (promise) is much easier to carry and store than heavy gold coins (proof). However, as I already stated, promises can, and will be, abused:

Gold certificates are actually a great example of deteriorating value to achieve volume. Goldsmiths learned very early that they could print many more certificates than they actually had gold to back up, because such few people ever bothered to redeem them. This kind of debasement was an early form of fractional reserve banking, and one of the first steps toward ultra-high volume trade.

Again though, such a promise is unnecessary in crypto, as the proof is right there in the coin.

I get that the proof of work is in the coin, but issuing promises(bank notes) based on gold reserves was still a reality at some point. The gold miners themselves don't really get a say on whether or not the person they sell to decides to issue promise notes based on their own holdings (in order to support things like a modern present-day economy) .. other than quitting mining. If that were to become our reality, then mining difficulty would just decrease to where anyone could sustain mining and continue issuing the same amount of "gold" to be produced otherwise. We've effectively blocked our own shot on this one (in a pretty neutral way).

As far as why anyone would want to issue promises for gold/monero reserves .. I can think of a few. The total supply of Monero is limited to 184.4 billion units. Currently we use numbers as high as 1000 trillion to define deficits of "promises". One number is bigger than the other, and we got there by issuing promises. Personally I don't see any specific reason (currently) to issue promises as well, because as you say the proof of work is right there in creating the monero .. but that same proof of work was also available by the very fact you have a 99.9% gold bar of "x" weight in the first place. All I'm saying is that I can see it happening again, because people will try to fit this into a world that they understand.

[Keyboard-Mash]

...
A redesigned wallet with a proper database of addresses and a corresponding API would solve this problem. It is going to come up again and again with every type of service that wants to receive payments from customers, especially those that are already designed around the address-per-customer model that is universally used in crypto outside cryptonote. So it needs to be fixed.

OK I get it, this can be fixed by an API and infrastructure to trade untraceable coins, rather than being something that rests solely on us. Thanks for the explanation. It's neat getting to rely partially on a world that's more willing to support cryptocurrencies. Things that were once considered major selling points are now just as easily taken care of by a third party. For example, http://targetmoon.com/ has recently added support for MRO.

They offer price monitoring and email alerts for many coins. Most people have email right to their phone. I can remember specific apps for each coin used to be a major marketing point, now handled with ease. This is one of the things that I feel can add to the fundamental valuation of the coin -- a world that's more prepared to receive these currencies.

Other groups like minergate, though I know there is heavy negative pressure on them due to the closed source nature, has offered the simplest one-click mining opportunity that could easily be considered a holy grail in cryptocurrency mining. My point here is that this is a third party, outside the focus of Monero itself, who has offered mostly freely something that would have otherwise been a major burden for a community to come up with. Specifically i'm referencing this against the time it has taken to build functional open source pools .. which I hope we can all switch to. I'm not alone when I say that minergate is good enough for some people though, and as such they are supporting us as a third party.

Sorry to go off on the tangent, I'm just trying to make the point that the world is much more capable of supporting crypto in general .. and Monero is in a fantastic strategic position because of it.

Not sure what you mean by automatic? Are you thinking of some kind of autonomous agent or something else?

Yes, completely autonomous. Specifically ... today if I wanted to pay my power bill with my money in the bank ... all I would have to do is sign onto the power company website and either punch in a debit card number or give them my banking information and then consent to their terms of payment and we're done. I have the ability to set this up to occur every time on a certain date a month. My interest lies in how that can be done with Monero. Maybe it's a little too far ahead to think, but the future's never a bad place to be thinking about. What led me to having this thought is -- how can pool users send directly to exchanges rather than to their own personal wallet first, automatically ... either without the tx extra field or based on a tx field recommended protocol?

[smooth]

So what the exchanges do now is have one wallet for all deposits and users identify themselves to the exchange for account crediting purposes with the payment ID.

A redesigned wallet with a proper database of addresses and a corresponding API would solve this problem. It is going to come up again and again with every type of service that wants to receive payments from customers, especially those that are already designed around the address-per-customer model that is universally used in crypto outside cryptonote. So it needs to be fixed.

I don't see the problem with Payment ID, since you can ask the site to change it each time you make a new transaction. Ok it could be a problem for direct pool payment if you wanted to separate/anonymise all your pool payment. But otherwise, the pool can provide an option for the miners to enter the ID.

It's not needed and is bloat, and see below. If you want it changed it each time, then you can't use it for pool payments. That's exactly what regular MRO addresses are for! (i.e. "Unlinkable payments") They are changed each time and prevent linking of payments.

A question :
Is the payment ID encrypted in the blockchain or is it readable to anyone ?

It is readable by anyone. You can literally read them right in the block explorer. The exchange can encrypt the contents of the payment ID, but there is nothing to require them to do so. I know in one case they are being generated using sequential numbers. What other information is leaked is hard to say.

It's fine as a temporary workaround but really not a good design.

Yes, payment ID should have been encrypted .
But as you said exchange or merchant could decide to accept encrypted payment ID.
You would just have to encrypt it with the same public key of the merchant, and maybe add a flag to say it's encrypted.

I think the reason it's not a good idea to have a new address for each merchant client is that the merchant would have to scan the blockchain for each of its client address, and that would take to much time.

I will review the efficiency issues with an open mind. I do see some potential issues there, but I believe the disadvantages (which would prefer not to fully enumerate at this time) to unstructured blobs in the block chain to be extreme and there is a high probability they will in fact be removed, or replaced with some alternative solution.

EDIT: Encrypting them might be acceptable. This will require some more analysis.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

The great thing about crypto is that there are no need for promises. Cryptocoins have proof (Proof of Work). That's far better than any promise. Proof of work is what makes gold (or any commodity money in existense for that matter) valuable. Excluding fiat, all money from the beginning of time had proof of work in some form or another. The mere presence of gold is proof that someone, somewhere, put it real effort to obtain it. Proof of work is the most basic form of intrinsic value.

A certificate is a promise that such proof exists. As mentioned upthread, this was important for trade, as paper money (promise) is much easier to carry and store than heavy gold coins (proof). However, as I already stated, promises can, and will be, abused:

Gold certificates are actually a great example of deteriorating value to achieve volume. Goldsmiths learned very early that they could print many more certificates than they actually had gold to back up, because such few people ever bothered to redeem them. This kind of debasement was an early form of fractional reserve banking, and one of the first steps toward ultra-high volume trade.

Again though, such a promise is unnecessary in crypto, as the proof is right there in the coin.

I get that the proof of work is in the coin, but issuing promises(bank notes) based on gold reserves was still a reality at some point. The gold miners themselves don't really get a say on whether or not the person they sell to decides to issue promise notes based on their own holdings (in order to support things like a modern present-day economy) .. other than quitting mining. If that were to become our reality, then mining difficulty would just decrease to where anyone could sustain mining and continue issuing the same amount of "gold" to be produced otherwise. We've effectively blocked our own shot on this one (in a pretty neutral way).

As far as why anyone would want to issue promises for gold/monero reserves .. I can think of a few. The total supply of Monero is limited to 184.4 billion units. Currently we use numbers as high as 1000 trillion to define deficits of "promises". One number is bigger than the other, and we got there by issuing promises. Personally I don't see any specific reason (currently) to issue promises as well, because as you say the proof of work is right there in creating the monero .. but that same proof of work was also available by the very fact you have a 99.9% gold bar of "x" weight in the first place. All I'm saying is that I can see it happening again, because people will try to fit this into a world that they understand.

Now I think I see what you're getting at. You're essentially asking, "why couldn't someone issue bitcoin/MRO certificates as a fractional debasement for the means of facilitating high volume trade?"

This is what scares me. If we aren't careful this will happen and it will be the death of decentralized crypto. Once promises begin to be issued we have a debt-based currency and we're back on track to centralized fiat. We have to bake these high volume properties into the coin or it's only a matter of time before we get "Government Cash 2.0: Backed by Bitcoin(TM)!"

This happens by means of easy credit. If people can go to banks and easily borrow tender in the form of debased Bitcoin certificates, then the certificates will take over as the primary form of trade. Then in 2071 President Nixon VI will take us off the BTC standard entirely.

I realize it's a slippery slope but my point is that these featues must be included in the currency itself, or a centralized party will eventually do it for us. The good news is that debasing a PoW crypto does not result in the same value loss as debasing fiat. We need a steadily (and infinitely) increasing money supply.

[David Latapie]

I don't know if this is the righ place to post it (since we are more on macro-economics than on trading), but still

Extended 10/200 strategy

I introduced you earlier to the 10/200 strategy by noted Bitcoin mogul Risto Pietila:

Everytime the price doubles, sell 10 % of your remaining stash.

And the corollary to the 10/200 strategy, which ensures you get free money from 73% of your stash:

ROI after three doublings.

Here, there is two schools: one that continue to sell after ROI is reached and one that just holds. Which school you will follow depends on how impatient, in need of money and confident on the future of your asset you are.

Now I would like to introduce you to what I called the extended 10/200 strategy. This is nothing new, traders use it everyday. Credits still go to aminorex.

After selling, place a buy order of the amount your sold at X% below your selling price and sell again at target price. Rinse and repeat.

For instance, your trading plan is to sell 10% of your Monero at 0.0064 BTC. You decide to buy back at 0.0051 BTC, because you are confident this is just a temporary fall in price and that it will reach 0.0064 again and probably more. Once it will reach 0.0064 again, you will sell again. In the process, you will have gain some moneroj. Free money. Once it doesn't work anymore (the price stops yoyoing around 0.0060 BTC), you just take the money and cash out (or invest it on something else).

This extension of the 10/200 strategy is compatible with both schools (the continuous sale school and the holding school).

[David Latapie]

I don't see your point. Governments can still force exchanges to collect your ID whether you're buying Monero or Bitcoin. What's the difference? How will an anonymous crypto solve that?

I agree with you. If you want anonmity, the whole chain must be anonymous
Currency prying => monero
Exchange prying => cash OTC
IP prying => I2P or TOR

Sure, it is much less convenient (especially cash OTC). Maybe with TOR of I2P, cash OTC is not necessary.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Then in 2071 President Nixon VI will take us off the BTC standard entirely.

He will not be a crook.

[Keyboard-Mash]

Hm, our conversation seems to have moved away from being centered around Monero itself and is now toward addressing fundamental economic theories. Anyone that has contributed so far, has my attention ... specifically for the fact that you even have an opinion on the matter. That's rare enough right now.

Anyways, I'm going to make a point that I've tried to make before in the past .. that I didn't at the time have the ability to unfold even a little bit. I mentioned that value must be able to be stored into a currency, to a point. It cannot flow too fast outward, nor should the value pour into the currency too fast else there will be major over-concentrations of value.

Before I go into it, my views of inflation can be understood rather well by this article: http://www.drlwilson.com/Articles/INFLATON.htm  . Specifically, if you think constantly increasing the money supply (exponential growth) in order to target an inflation is the most acceptable thing to do, please consider the largely ineffective, even possibly detrimental, tool used most recently by a group of relatively intelligent people: Quantitative Easing.

These people have been thinking about these problems of "wealth concentration" for much longer than us here at Monero (them years-decades, us a month), they are more than us and are much better equipped to actually put the tool to work than us. They still came up with something that didn't work. That's why I say we go with what's worked for 6000 years, a constant supply (effectually a constant depreciating inflation, an exponential decay of debasement being added yearly) of "money" until someone or some group of people has a much better picture of the situation at hand. Just because the understood inflation rate of gold can be reported to be as high as 2.5% (I've personally found numbers closer to 1.5%) does not mean it's been historically that high. I would rather think it's been historically lower, much lower than even 1.5% ... but perhaps someone will be great enough to provide me proof of either?

Continuing this argument, allow me to make an idiotically simplistic strainer analogy. Consider a situation where you are trying to fill up your strainer under a kitchen faucet. In this comparison, the water itself is value, the flow of the water is a variable we can never be able to predict (and the main reason I say we stick with what's worked for 6k years, and go w/ constant supply) is the speed at which value flows into this simplistic economic system. The size (or number) of the holes is the targeted inflation you want, and the size of the strainer is comparable to constant supply (where the height of the container itself grows constantly).

What I think we want is a situation where we can fill the strainer to the brim, without overflow and without the strainer being totally empty. When you say things like 5% inflation could be necessary ... well I think that's a situation that won't hold water .. too many holes. On the opposite hand, keeping the number of holes the same ... while increasing the actual size of the strainer will give the ability to hold more water over time (while also having a form of debasement, though less relative to the amount in existence today). The balance between the two can only be reached with an accurate understanding of the faucet and the speed at which it will likely pass your strainer water, and exactly how many holes we need as well as the height of the walls at any particular time. We are in a point where we don't have a clue where this is leading, thus my previous stance that either of the most likely situations will give adequate time in which the issue may be solved.

Specifically, I have to believe that wealth must concentrate to a point (the brim), else the entire system loses value too quickly (out the holes). We will end up in a situation where, one day in the future, in under 24 hours the entire money supply existing today will be created in less than an instant with un-damped exponential growth that would be invited with a constant inflation.

I realize that this is probably a miserable analogy, and I think it's been better attributed to dilution of a fluid ... but I was just so excited. Either way, I'm focusing on the micro scale of the viewpoint of one person wallet (indicating that wealth may concentrate because one person may have multiple wallets) -- while I feel the fluid dilution analogy would be better at describing the system as a whole

I still maintain that the creation of a damped harmonic function, by combining an exponential decay (constant supply) with an exponential growth (constant inflation) of supply will be the only correct solution to this. I also maintain that the exponential decay (of increased money supply) model achieved through constant supply has worked for 6000 years, and can provide the historical basis to most likely work until a correct solution is discovered.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

These people have been thinking about these problems of "wealth concentration" for much longer than us here at Monero (them years-decades, us a month), they are more than us and are much better equipped to actually put the tool to work than us.

No. Fiat economics and cryptoeconomics do not play by the same rules. Before bitcoin it was impossible to manipulate the work/reward relationships of money. We cryptocurrency folk are the first people to ever experiment in this arena.

Quantitative easing is a mechanism of fractional reserve banking where the central controllers give banks more lending leverage by purchasing their financial assets. The money used to purchase these assets is generated ex nihilo, as is the resulting money that is created from this leverage.

That should not in any way be compared to an increase of a proof-of-work based money supply. If the "proof" and "work" scale proportionately, there will be minimal effect on value. I think I have a thought experiment to explain this:

Imagine you are the ruler of some midieval kingdom, and you need to somehow turn the economy's 100,000 gold coins into 110,000 gold coins for whatever reason. You have two options:

Option 1) you simply mix cheap metals into the gold to create 10,000 more coins, resulting in each coin having 10% less gold.
Option 2) you sack a nearby village and steal 10,000 pure gold coins.

Both scenarios result in an increased money supply, but only one comes with a significant value cost.

Supply inflation in cryptocurrency is like option 2. There's no loss of intrinsic value.
Quantitative easing is like option 1. Actually, QE would be closer to creating gold-colored plastic coins and using the plastic coins as leverage for distributing plastic coin certificates

Just because the understood inflation rate of gold can be reported to be as high as 2.5% (I've personally found numbers closer to 1.5%) does not mean it's been historically that high.

Whether the rate of increase of the world's gold supply was historically lower or higher doesn't change the fact that the buying power of gold is (roughly) the same today as it was a thousand years ago, despite centuries of exponential inflation. Why? Because the "work" and the "proof" scaled proportionately.

When you say things like 5% inflation could be necessary ... well I think that's a situation that won't hold water .. too many holes.

We will never know the minimum effective dose because we will only know when we fail, but never when we succeed. Personally, I'd prefer to overshoot and risk losing a little value each year than underestimate what's necessary and end up with centralized fiat notes in 10 years.

[Keyboard-Mash]

These people have been thinking about these problems of "wealth concentration" for much longer than us here at Monero (them years-decades, us a month), they are more than us and are much better equipped to actually put the tool to work than us.

No. Fiat economics and cryptoeconomics do not play by the same rules. Before bitcoin it was impossible to manipulate the work/reward relationships of money. We cryptocurrency folk are the first people to ever experiment in this arena.

Quantitative easing is a mechanism of fractional reserve banking where the central controllers give banks more lending leverage by purchasing their financial assets. The money used to purchase these assets is generated ex nihilo, as is the resulting money that is created from this leverage.

That should not in any way be compared to an increase of a proof-of-work based money supply. If the "proof" and "work" scale proportionately, there will be minimal effect on value. I think I have a thought experiment to explain this:

Imagine you are the ruler of some midieval kingdom, and you need to somehow turn the economy's 100,000 gold coins into 110,000 gold coins for whatever reason. You have two options:

Option 1) you simply mix cheap metals into the gold to create 10,000 more coins, resulting in each coin having 10% less gold.
Option 2) you sack a nearby village and steal 10,000 pure gold coins.

Both scenarios result in an increased money supply, but only one comes with a significant value cost.

Supply inflation in cryptocurrency is like option 2. There's no loss of intrinsic value.
Quantitative easing is like option 1. Actually, QE would be closer to creating gold-colored plastic coins and using the plastic coins as leverage for distributing plastic coin certificates

I've got some reading to do on QE for sure, I was trying to point out that the inflated money supply was supposed to spur banks to give out more loans (IE trying to curb concentrations of money by providing incentive to part with it rather than hold it). Clearly it's not the best example. Actually I half-admit it can be seen as a tactic to detract from an argument I didn't have the understanding to debate properly. I did a bit of reading since then, and have reformed my opinion .. and it's much more in line with your stance Thanks for the debate!

Whether the rate of increase of the world's gold supply was historically lower or higher doesn't change the fact that the buying power of gold is (roughly) the same today as it was a thousand years ago, despite centuries of exponential inflation. Why? Because the "work" and the "proof" scaled proportionately.

I had made statements that I hadn't researched properly. Historic gold inflation rate has been 1.3265% based on reasonable studies on gold supplies over >6000 year periods. (Links below).

We will never know the minimum effective dose because we will only know when we fail, but never when we succeed. Personally, I'd prefer to overshoot and risk losing a little value each year than underestimate what's necessary and end up with centralized fiat notes in 10 years.

I'd advocate for sticking with what can be agreed on, of a value over or at 1%. Perhaps maybe a little higher. 2% is insanely high:

Consider we start with one single pound (as .0005 tons) of gold 6000 years ago. Inflating that 2%/year for 6000 years gives an insane number that we're nowhere near (4.2385050037e+22 tons). Rather, assuming the very first gold deposit/amount collected 6000 years ago (the last source leans toward this claim) were only one pound ... only a 1.3265% inflation rate would give us the amount of gold in circulation today.

One point I don't agree with you on is the purchasing power of gold. Over the last few decades, it has not maintained its constant purchasing power. In fact it has swung quite drastically ... perhaps because of no gold standard, the need for it, a hedge against fiat inflation?


Sources (If nothing, check out the last one):

http://www.numbersleuth.org/worlds-gold/

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gold_Inflation.asp

http://www.goldfacts.org/en/faqs/#q_how_much_gold_is_left_in_the_ground

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/20/gold-mine-output-idUSL5N0J44T720131120

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/8180569/A-history-of-gold.html

http://www.mining-journal.com/knowledge/Mining-Explained

http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/math/exponential-growth-calculator.htm

http://www.utdallas.edu/~rjstern/egypt/PDFs/SE%20Desert/KlemmAU.JAES01.pdf

edit: I'm still trying to build a basis for exactly why it would be a good idea to build what I've seen mentioned as "a robber" into this (constant supply/%) .. and exactly what type of "robber" this is .. my initial opinion needed to be formed by what is happening currently before I could make ground on that though. I've got great links for those (think you've provided some), but it'll probably take a while to go through them all.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I did understand your original point regarding QE, and it was a valid one. As we've seen, however, allowing people to borrow more money does not necessarily give them the confidence to spend more money. I think that's a pitfall of a debt-based currency more than it is a failure of supply inflation to incentivize trade.

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The purchasing power of gold and it's dollar price are not the same thing, so we have to be careful making fiat comparisons. That said, the price of gold in 1833 was $18.93, which according to MeasuringWorth.com's "historic standard of living" is roughly $542.00, not far from the 2006 price of $603.46. The value certainly does fluctuate, but my point was that the exponential increase of the gold supply has had little effect on its value.

This is why demurrage and inflation are not the same thing in cryptoland. Demurrage (by design) reduces value via direct taxation. Inflation doesn't necessarily reduce value at all (though it certainly can). I apologize for regurgitating the same arguments over and over again. The view of inflation as "robbery" is justified in fiat, because every new dollar taxes the old ones. However, in crypto economics inflation would be more appropriately seen as "redistribution."

If you view inflation as "robbery" then yes, 2% may indeed be high.
If you view inflation as "redistribution" then 2% is probably not enough to have any positive impact.

Effective inflation has dependencies, of course. For example, exponential inflation applied to bitcoin would only hasten its demise, as mining is limited to the privileged. Wealth would largely be redistributed to the wealthy. This means an egalitarian proof of work like that in Monero would be a prerequisite for redistribution by inflation.