Gold used physical-world trade for a long long time, it did not (and still does not) self-host ownership transfers.
You’re right, it’s not identical. However, monetary supply was decided via proof-of-work. Chain of ownership and custody was not. I was referring to monetary policy here, but that is an important distinction.
There’s no intrinsic value behind it (that is, no industrial use and no government demanding their taxes/payments in that form)
The use of gold in electronics makes it a worse form of money, not better. The fact that you have to put money in your phone to make it work is very economically awkward.
As for intrinsic value—no currency has intrinsic value. It’s a network of people who agree something has value in order to animate trade.
Bitcoin’s value proposition is that it functions as a unit of account/store of value better than any other currency right now, incentivizing people to store value and account in it. Right now, it’s store of value is there. Unit of account may be close, and medium of exchange seems a ways off, if it does, in fact, get there. That’s the value proposition—better money, thereby causing better economic coordination.
The question of whether a currency is inflationary or deflationary for any given period of time is pretty small
I hadn’t considered this. I guess we’d also expect the rate of economy fluctuation to increase, like everything else does. It’s quite possible we’ll see a technology better than Bitcoin, or even something stranger, like successful friendly AI obviating the need for money, within a century. Still, I think that if the claims of deflationary death spirals from history are accurate (which I do suspect they aren’t), then it makes sense to ask this question, even in the short-ish term.
You’re right, it’s not identical. However, monetary supply was decided via proof-of-work. Chain of ownership and custody was not. I was referring to monetary policy here, but that is an important distinction.
The use of gold in electronics makes it a worse form of money, not better. The fact that you have to put money in your phone to make it work is very economically awkward.
As for intrinsic value—no currency has intrinsic value. It’s a network of people who agree something has value in order to animate trade.
Bitcoin’s value proposition is that it functions as a unit of account/store of value better than any other currency right now, incentivizing people to store value and account in it. Right now, it’s store of value is there. Unit of account may be close, and medium of exchange seems a ways off, if it does, in fact, get there. That’s the value proposition—better money, thereby causing better economic coordination.
I hadn’t considered this. I guess we’d also expect the rate of economy fluctuation to increase, like everything else does. It’s quite possible we’ll see a technology better than Bitcoin, or even something stranger, like successful friendly AI obviating the need for money, within a century. Still, I think that if the claims of deflationary death spirals from history are accurate (which I do suspect they aren’t), then it makes sense to ask this question, even in the short-ish term.