Bitcoin price increases are just getting started

[unk]

inflation is a decentralised phenomenon, even if it has a centralised cause in the expansion of the money supply by a central bank. i don't think it's easy to say whether it's 'theft' unless you look at what happens to the money being created (if that's the only reason for inflation; milton friedman is not necessarily right about that). as a trivial example, it couldn't possibly be theft if the money were given back proportionally to holders of the currency!

and even if it does steal from currency holders long-term, nobody's required to hold currency long-term. i'm trying to stay away from deeply political discussions, but i'm frankly puzzled at the anger toward fiat currencies. if you don't like them, don't use them. it would be like experiencing anger at google when their stock falls. 'those bastards at google - they're wasting my money paying employees too much.' if someone thinks that, they shouldn't hold google stock. the same is true for dollars, euros, and pounds. the government does 'coerce', but not in this respect.

indeed, inflation helps you if you don't want to hold 'fiat currency' and are only required to convert back to it on days when taxes are due. the government isn't forcing employers to pay anyone in fiat currency. people direct their anger at the government, but what they really seem not to like are simply social norms about who uses which kind of money. their anger on this score shouldn't be with the government but with the people they personally do business with.

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[rezin777]

as a trivial example, it couldn't possibly be theft if the money were given back proportionally to holders of the currency!

Yes, but that certainly isn't the case. Or do you have an example of where it is?

and even if it does steal from currency holders long-term, nobody's required to hold currency long-term. i'm trying to stay away from deeply political discussions, but i'm frankly puzzled at the anger toward fiat currencies. if you don't like them, don't use them.

I'm not angry at the currency, I agree that would be silly. I'm angry at the people who enforce it simply because of where I was born. "If you don't like them don't use them" is a great argument if there weren't penalties for not using them. I'm trying to avoid a political discussion myself, and I avoid fiat currencies where possible, but you simply can't live your life without being forced to use them in some way, shape, or form. If I try to buy products, at my current geographical location, without paying taxes on those products, I would be guilty of tax evasion.

the government isn't forcing employers to pay anyone in fiat currency.

Please, give me an example. You yourself recently gave me examples of how a business is required to report its inventory for tax purposes. Besides that, how does one continue to own property without paying the property tax?

[unk]

my point is just that having to pay taxes in dollars doesn't expose you to the inflation risk of holding dollars, except if there's hyperinflation on the day (or in the hours) after you convert it and before you pay it to inland revenue. and that's far-fetched at present.

the government forces dollars to pass through your hands, but dollar-inflation doesn't harm you if you choose not to hang onto the dollars.

having to use dollars for other purposes, or choosing to hang onto it for longer, isn't at the behest of the government. it's at the behest of your trading partners, or it's an investment decision of your own. else bitcoin (and gold) wouldn't even be a possibility.

to be sure, i think the government at least potentially deserves anger when it tells people 'you can't hold gold', as the us government has done in the past. that is a meaningful restriction of financial liberty. maybe it has good reasons, maybe it doesn't, but it's definitely an imposition.

telling someone they have to pay their taxes in dollars is not the same kind of imposition, and it doesn't directly expose anyone to inflation risk. and so far as i know, dollars are not required for any other purpose, except perhaps that you must accept them for the payment of debts (and even then you can move out of dollars trivially as soon as the debt is paid).

i hold only the dollars, pounds, and bitcoins that i want to hold. no more, no less.

[rezin777]

i hold only the dollars, pounds, and bitcoins that i want to hold. no more, no less.

If you are born somewhere that happens to be inside the borders of the U.S.A. and you want to live your life where you were born, and you want to own property to facilitate that, you must hold FRNs. You must pay property tax in FRN or your property will be taken away from you. If you've worked your whole life and want to retire on your savings, a portion of your savings must be in FRN or you risk losing your property. Suggesting that you can trade whatever you've put your savings into for FRN is not a valid argument because you are suggesting that you can convert whatever you have saved for FRN, which may not be the case.

[unk]

i don't disagree, but my point is that you are still not required to hold them long-term and are still not subject to inflation for doing so, if that is all you use dollars for.

at worst, you are being subject to transaction costs for the conversions, and for almost all investments except for real property, those transaction costs are relatively minor. (and i believe some localities let you pay property taxes in advance using a trust.)

i'm not sure what else is plausible or even possible. someone has to pay the transaction costs. why shouldn't it be the taxpayer? (if it were the government, that would just be reflected in higher tax rates.)

if you don't support taxes at all, that's a separate matter, but my point is just that the requirement that you pay taxes in dollars doesn't subject you to inflation.

[uiohfoewifhioewhf]

(5) proposition betting is legal in the uk, and there are many, many bookmakers. it's stifled in the us because of gambling laws, but prediction markets in general are nothing new. bitcoin doesn't change that or even particularly make them harder to detect. (the biggest operational difficulty illegal bookmakers face is not currently 'how can people get us money and how can we return it?')

You are wrong about Bitcoin not making illegal bookmakers harder to detect.

Illegal bookmakers, particularly in the United States, could operate over the Internet if they use Bitcoins, which they cannot do with USD, because banks and credit card companies would freeze their assets and help the government prosecute them. Using Bitcoin, they can purchase anonymous, offshore VPS hosting. There are a few VPS services that accept Bitcoin and don't attempt to verify your identity. The VPS would run a Web server and bitcoind. The site can be administered entirely through a Tor proxy, depriving the ISP of the bookmaker's genuine IP address.

Users would place their bets through the Web site, after funding an in-site account with Bitcoins. This would allow the bookmaker to control fraud against himself. Bettors would be forced to trust the bookmaker, just like users of UK's Betfair.

(The bookmaker could also run his site as a Tor Hidden Service, but that would limit potential customers to hackers who can figure out how to get Tor to work.)

Authorities would be unable to apprehend the bookmaker because they would never be able to track him down. Even if the offshore ISP cooperated, they wouldn't have enough information to nail him.

While such a business wouldn't "take over the economy", its market cap would be larger than the current market cap of Bitcoin. That means an increase in the price of the coins.

[Demandrel]

Inflation is theft from existing holders of a currency, or a tax on them.  It's a gift to those who are borrowers, so long as it is unexpected (they have fixed obligations that they need to repay in the future and so inflation helps them out).  

Deflation is theft from those who are "short" the currency (those who need to purchase the currency in the future in order to satisfy future obligations), or a tax on them.  

Either way, price instability is taking from one group or another.  Sure, as a saver it is great to have a currency that will appreciate in the future (prices will decline), but the problem with that is that people don't want to spend a currency that is depreciating.  They want to hold onto it.  And people don't want to participate in a currency where a bunch of first movers have a massive advantage because of their original position.  That limits the total size of the economy in the future, which also limits the amount of potential appreciation in the currency (because the price of the currency is essentially Price/Quantity = Money Supply * Velocity of Money).  

Either way I see a fundamental problem in the currency in that initial holders get unfairly rewarded and there is always deflation in the system to the extent the quantity of goods being traded grows.  I understand people making the point that the initial holders are not unfairly rewarded in that they did something, but the fact is that people can always replicate the same system with a new chain at any time.  If there is too much value accrued to early adopters no one will want to use the current chain.  

There is a fundamental need for a currency like this.  I see two major issues, however:

a.  Lack of expansion of the monetary base means there is price instability in the system in the form that penalizes new entrants.  Therefore, this discourages new entrants.  New entrants can avoid the system (there is no coercive force behind it); and

b.  The value upon expansion of the monetary base accrues based on computing power, where that computing power is not necessarily needed to actually perform legitimate work but is rather there in order to set some kind of threshold (a level of "pain" in order to determine who gets the new money).  If that computing power was actually required in order to process the transactions, rather than to solve problems at an ever-higher level of difficulty, then I could see this sticking.  But that is not the case.  

[Demandrel]

I thought a bit about the issues that I noted in my last post.  Kept me from sleeping, actually. 

Essentially, you want to keep the monetary base expanding in order to try to maintain price stability.  The best way to do this is to expand the monetary base at a rate that is equivalent to the increase in the value of transactions.  We know that Nominal GDP is equal to the Monetary Base * Velocity of Money, and that therefore if we increase the Monetary Base (holding velocity constant), then we increase Nominal GDP; whether or not prices stay the same with that change is dependent on whether or not Real GDP also went up.  So if we want pricing to remain consistent, then if we can hold Velocity of Money constant we just need to increase the Monetary Base in line with any increases in Real GDP.  That means for Bitcoin that you need a way to determine the total value of the the market at any one time and increase the limit on Bitcoins as that market value grows. 

What's the best way to do that?  I'm not sure, but that's fundamentally what you would want to do. 

Okay, so if our monetary base is expanding, who gets the value of that expansion?  If we say it just always accrues to the guys with the fastest computers, then that means all capital created goes to reward people who just buy faster computers.  While there is a value in the incentive you are creating to have more computing power on the network, and therefore greater security, you create two problems: 

1.  All cash passes through the hands of people who mine the coins.  If you want to create a currency that everyone the world over can actually use, is it really fair that 100% of all of the original monetary base must at some point be owned by people who just have computing power sitting there doing calculations that only serve a limited purpose?  Not really. 

2.  If those people save, rather than spend, their cash, then the creation did not help anyone anyways.  And if they are not spending it, then you have a problem with how cash is entering the market.  You can end up with a deflation problem anyways. 

There is, however, a simple solution to both of these problems if the network has achieved scale.  Instead of distributing the new cash that needs to be created only to data miners, distribute it first as transaction cost rebates.  Instead of rewarding people for sitting and using their computing power, you are now rewarding people who are using their coins in transactions.  People who are providers of liquidity in the market get a rebate on their transaction costs for their efforts (with the rebate always less than the transaction cost itself).  This limits your monetary base growth to the value of your transaction costs, which may not be sufficient to maintain price stability, but it's better than having all of the value merely go to computing power.

Fundamentally, in my opinion, the problems I noted need to be solved for this to become a real currency with global usage.  It will not do so if it is a currency set up for deflation where massive value accrues to the first movers, because there is insufficient incentive for people to participate in your network rather than set up a new one once the value accrued to first movers is too high. 

[goatpig]

if you don't support taxes at all, that's a separate matter, but my point is just that the requirement that you pay taxes in dollars doesn't subject you to inflation.

Still it appears contradictory in terms. Supposedly a republic exists by the will of its people, and the government of such nation is thus, by all means, at the service of that people. I presume you agree that holding on inflationary money in the long term is detrimental. This then begs the question as to why an entity sanctioned by the people to care for the people's good figured it should make it more complicated for those who empower it to give it the very substance that empowers it. It doesn't make any sense, from both ends. I hope this wasn't too political.

[rezin777]

Essentially, you want to keep the monetary base expanding in order to try to maintain price stability.  The best way to do this is to expand the monetary base at a rate that is equivalent to the increase in the value of transactions.  We know that Nominal GDP is equal to the Monetary Base * Velocity of Money, and that therefore if we increase the Monetary Base (holding velocity constant), then we increase Nominal GDP; whether or not prices stay the same with that change is dependent on whether or not Real GDP also went up.  So if we want pricing to remain consistent, then if we can hold Velocity of Money constant we just need to increase the Monetary Base in line with any increases in Real GDP.  That means for Bitcoin that you need a way to determine the total value of the the market at any one time and increase the limit on Bitcoins as that market value grows. 

What's the best way to do that?  I'm not sure, but that's fundamentally what you would want to do. 

I have a hard time understanding price stability and why we want it. As I understand it, price stability is a relatively stable price of consumer goods over a certain period of time. How stable does the price have to be and how long does it have to remain stable? I don't see how you can have stability in something that isn't centrally controlled. Also, if supply and demand fluctuate (which they do), how can prices be constant? Instead of trying to achieve price stability shouldn't we be trying to achieve prices that accurately reflect supply and demand? And is this something that we can do better than market forces can do on their own.

Basically it seems to me that you want to control the uncontrollable. You ask what is the best way to do that? What I'm concerned about is if someone has the ability to do that, what is preventing them from abusing that power? Also, you would have to convince me that price stability is more beneficial than market forces setting the price. If there is a major drought and a large percentage of wheat supplies are destroyed, why should we expect the price of wheat to remain stable? The only way to keep stability in such a situation is to have a store of wheat.

I also think your definition of theft by deflation is ludicrous. If you don't have any of the deflationary currency, you are not part of the economy. If you later become part of that economy by purchasing the deflationary currency, the people who already had the currency are not taking value from you.

[unk]

I also think your definition of theft by deflation is ludicrous. If you don't have any of the deflationary currency, you are not part of the economy. If you later become part of that economy by purchasing the deflationary currency, the people who already had the currency are not taking value from you.

aha! exactly the same thing is true of inflationary currencies (in reverse). if you don't hold them, you don't experience inflation.

[rezin777]

aha! exactly the same thing is true of inflationary currencies (in reverse). if you don't hold them, you don't experience inflation.

I agree. Anyone who holds inflationary currency is taking a risk. Again, the inflationary FRN is the only form of payment the U.S. government accepts for taxes. If you don't pay taxes, you will be punished. I suppose one has to spend the rest of his life selling goods (or whatever else) for FRN (and probably paying taxes again!) if he wants to avoid holding the inflationary money and not be punished. What fun.

And you find it odd that this system angers people?

[unk]

i'm afraid i still just don't see the logic of the complaint. if i'm paid $100,000 a year, have $50,000 of expenses, and owe $20,000 in us taxes, i can take the remaining $30,000 and invest it how i'd like. if i invest it elsewhere, dollar inflation doesn't hurt me as an investor. and the capital-gain-realization rules mean i don't have to pay any taxes on (many kinds of) investments until i choose to sell them.

even if i'm not paid in dollars, the 'tax' requirement doesn't meaningfully subject my investments to inflation. if i'm paid in gold, i just have to convert some to dollars to pay us taxes. i can complain that it's expensive to convert gold into dollars (though it isn't), but dollar-inflation still isn't affecting me unless i choose to let it by screwing up the timing of my conversions. (indeed, dollar-inflation helps me because my $X taxes will seem lower after inflation, so i benefit because i was paid in gold.)

again, i don't see any way around the proposition that regardless of 'legal tender' and 'tax' rules, dollar-inflation hurts you only if you choose to let it, or if your business circumstances require you to let it. either way, the government isn't forcing you to experience the harms of any of the inflationary currencies that exist. thus my puzzlement at the misplaced anger.

[tomcollins]

i'm afraid i still just don't see the logic of the complaint. if i'm paid $100,000 a year, have $50,000 of expenses, and owe $20,000 in us taxes, i can take the remaining $30,000 and invest it how i'd like. if i invest it elsewhere, dollar inflation doesn't hurt me as an investor. and the capital-gain-realization rules mean i don't have to pay any taxes on (many kinds of) investments until i choose to sell them.

even if i'm not paid in dollars, the 'tax' requirement doesn't meaningfully subject my investments to inflation. if i'm paid in gold, i just have to convert some to dollars to pay us taxes. i can complain that it's expensive to convert gold into dollars (though it isn't), but dollar-inflation still isn't affecting me unless i choose to let it by screwing up the timing of my conversions. (indeed, dollar-inflation helps me because my $X taxes will seem lower after inflation, so i benefit because i was paid in gold.)

again, i don't see any way around the proposition that regardless of 'legal tender' and 'tax' rules, dollar-inflation hurts you only if you choose to let it, or if your business circumstances require you to let it. either way, the government isn't forcing you to experience the harms of any of the inflationary currencies that exist. thus my puzzlement at the misplaced anger.

You are wrong for several reasons.

1)  You invest in something that holds value with inflation.  You get taxed on capital gains on this.  If you invest in something that gains value above inflation,  you are taxed far more than the actual gains.

2)  Inflation benefits the first people who get new money at the expense of people who already have money.  The earlier you are to receive the money, the more you benefit than those at the bottom of the chain.  The top of the chain is the politically connected (not you).  Think about the BTC economy.  Suppose no one is trading in and out and there is a constant set of people in it all producing a certain amount that's constant year to year.  Each time someone mines a block of 50, they get the spending power of 50 BTC immediately.  Everyone else is 50/total number of coins * their coins poorer.  The economy has not grown, but the money supply has.  We accept this with Bitcoins because it will not happen forever, mining the 50 coins was not cheap and not really done for free, and it is useful in tracking transactions.  When a politician can create money from thin air, or a bank can, it is those who are connected who benefit and it is done without cost.

You are being screwed no matter what you do, it's just a matter of how badly.  Unless you are politically connected, then counterfeiting is the greatest thing ever for you.

[rezin777]

i'm afraid i still just don't see the logic of the complaint. if i'm paid $100,000 a year, have $50,000 of expenses, and owe $20,000 in us taxes, i can take the remaining $30,000 and invest it how i'd like. if i invest it elsewhere, dollar inflation doesn't hurt me as an investor. and the capital-gain-realization rules mean i don't have to pay any taxes on (many kinds of) investments until i choose to sell them.

even if i'm not paid in dollars, the 'tax' requirement doesn't meaningfully subject my investments to inflation. if i'm paid in gold, i just have to convert some to dollars to pay us taxes. i can complain that it's expensive to convert gold into dollars (though it isn't), but dollar-inflation still isn't affecting me unless i choose to let it by screwing up the timing of my conversions. (indeed, dollar-inflation helps me because my $X taxes will seem lower after inflation, so i benefit because i was paid in gold.)

again, i don't see any way around the proposition that regardless of 'legal tender' and 'tax' rules, dollar-inflation hurts you only if you choose to let it, or if your business circumstances require you to let it. either way, the government isn't forcing you to experience the harms of any of the inflationary currencies that exist. thus my puzzlement at the misplaced anger.

You aren't the average person. Making wise investments is not as easy as you make it out to be or everyone would do it. It's not the wise investor that inflation hurts. It's the average Joe that likes to put some money away for a rainy day. Most people are paid in fiat currency, spend in fiat currency, and save in fiat currency.

Inflation hurts the average person in other ways that we haven't discussed, and I'm certain you understand them without having me explain them to you. tomcollins already gave another example.

I agree, to get angry is the incorrect response. Fix your own finances so that it doesn't affect you. This takes time, knowledge, and money to achieve.

[tomcollins]

i'm afraid i still just don't see the logic of the complaint. if i'm paid $100,000 a year, have $50,000 of expenses, and owe $20,000 in us taxes, i can take the remaining $30,000 and invest it how i'd like. if i invest it elsewhere, dollar inflation doesn't hurt me as an investor. and the capital-gain-realization rules mean i don't have to pay any taxes on (many kinds of) investments until i choose to sell them.

even if i'm not paid in dollars, the 'tax' requirement doesn't meaningfully subject my investments to inflation. if i'm paid in gold, i just have to convert some to dollars to pay us taxes. i can complain that it's expensive to convert gold into dollars (though it isn't), but dollar-inflation still isn't affecting me unless i choose to let it by screwing up the timing of my conversions. (indeed, dollar-inflation helps me because my $X taxes will seem lower after inflation, so i benefit because i was paid in gold.)

again, i don't see any way around the proposition that regardless of 'legal tender' and 'tax' rules, dollar-inflation hurts you only if you choose to let it, or if your business circumstances require you to let it. either way, the government isn't forcing you to experience the harms of any of the inflationary currencies that exist. thus my puzzlement at the misplaced anger.

You aren't the average person. Making wise investments is not as easy as you make it out to be or everyone would do it. It's not the wise investor that inflation hurts. It's the average Joe that likes to put some money away for a rainy day. Most people are paid in fiat currency, spend in fiat currency, and save in fiat currency.

Inflation hurts the average person in other ways that we haven't discussed, and I'm certain you understand them without having me explain them to you. tomcollins already gave another example.

I agree, to get angry is the incorrect response. Fix your own finances so that it doesn't affect you. This takes time, knowledge, and money to achieve.

Even if you are a wise investor, you get hurt.  Just not as much.  Unless you are a wise and connected investor.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I have a hard time understanding price stability and why we want it. As I understand it, price stability is a relatively stable price of consumer goods over a certain period of time. How stable does the price have to be and how long does it have to remain stable? I don't see how you can have stability in something that isn't centrally controlled. Also, if supply and demand fluctuate (which they do), how can prices be constant? Instead of trying to achieve price stability shouldn't we be trying to achieve prices that accurately reflect supply and demand? And is this something that we can do better than market forces can do on their own.

Basically it seems to me that you want to control the uncontrollable. You ask what is the best way to do that? What I'm concerned about is if someone has the ability to do that, what is preventing them from abusing that power? Also, you would have to convince me that price stability is more beneficial than market forces setting the price. If there is a major drought and a large percentage of wheat supplies are destroyed, why should we expect the price of wheat to remain stable? The only way to keep stability in such a situation is to have a store of wheat.

Well put. Price stability is an unachievable, undesirable myth of modern central-planned fiat monetary protagonists.

Prices of basic commodities need to be allowed to fluctuate to send pricing information signals to producers to back-off or ramp-up production (supply and demand), or else you end up with horrible gluts and shortages (waste and famine) that only a communist regime could love.

[Demandrel]

When I refer to price stability, I do not mean that all prices should remain stable.  I mean that, in general, prices should not fluctuate without a change in the underlying supply and demand of the item. 

No one (that I know of) targets price stability in regards to individual items.  It is price stability in regards to a broad basket of goods that is a reasonable target.  Without changes in productivity, that is a reasonable expectation.  In a closed economy, without international trade, it would be reasonable to expect the price of goods to remain relatively consistent on a broad basis.  Of course that could not be said for each individual good.  Without the price signals of the market, there would be no supply and demand signalling process.  But should the broad price index swing wildly in one direction or another without changes in productive capacity?  No.  If it does, that means there is likely a currency problem, not a general economic problem. 

Obviously my original explanation was insufficient, given it was interpreted as suggesting that an economy with centralized price controls and fixed pricing of individual goods is optimal.  The truth is far from that; however, to the extent the broad price index moves wildly without changes in productive capacity, that signals that there is a change in the value of the CURRENCY ITSELF that is occurring, rather than changes in the actual value of goods.  A stable currency, relative to the total productivity of the economy, is a reasonable target. 

[MoonShadow]

When I refer to price stability, I do not mean that all prices should remain stable.  I mean that, in general, prices should not fluctuate without a change in the underlying supply and demand of the item. 

General price stabability will come with a mature market size.  Once enough of the public has already discovered Bitcoin that new discoveries become increasingly uncommon, or simply a smaller share of the economy due to a very large user base being relatively unaffected by new users coming in, then the value of a bitcoin will achieve a relative stabability to that of any other "small" currency traded on Forex.

[Demandrel]

It Bitcoin accepts that it must be limited in economic size in order to achieve price stability (which is fundamentally true), then Bitcoin will not survive.

Hopefully everyone accepts the fundamental basis for why the Bitcoin economy would have to remain limited in size in order to have broad price stability.  For this once again we go back to a limited money supply only allowing for price stability to the extent the quantity of goods traded remains the same.  Without growth in the money supply, growth in the economy will lead to deflation.  Deflation discourages new entrants into the market.  So with the money supply fixed, price stability can only be achieved with a fixed GDP.

Why does that mean Bitcoin will not survive?  Because there is a strong need for what Bitcoin provides, which is anonymity, near-costless transfers, the ability to transcend borders, freedom from forfeiture, etc.  With the cost of entering the Bitcoin economy high because of the limited money supply, people will figure out how to take the idea and create an alternative that does not have these issues.  If that occurs, then people will tend to use this new system rather than Bitcoins, and at some point the market penetration of Bitcoins will be such that their value will decline, and you will see inflation, rather than deflation, in Bitcoins until they are worthless. 

Either the Bitcoin money supply needs to be able to grow with the Bitcoin economy, such that there can be price stability with growing GDP, or Bitcoin will be supplanted by a similar technology that deals with this issue and as a result Bitcoins will become worthless.