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A bitcoin can be divided into many pieces.



So can a dollar. Admittedly not as many pieces - only 100 of them - but the principle is exactly the same.


There's no reason to issue more bitcoin. The forces of supply and demand will keep the value stable, regardless of the exact number of bitcoins outstanding. Issuing more bitcoin would only serve to invite fears that it would be issued in shady ways, or that such issuances might become routine and inflation would take place. This would only further undermine the currency's perceived staying power.


Unfortunately humans are famously loss averse[1] which leads to downwardly sticky nominal prices[2] in practice. In the face of deflation a lot of people just stop buying and selling and hope that prices go back up, or hold out for a nominal offer as big as what they think they "should" get even if the real value is the same.

If your bitcoin economy is full of nerds who really understand the subjective value of money than that's fine. But if you were to start having lots of normal people using Bitcoin and denominating prices and contracts in Bbitcoin than deflation would be a huge problem. As long as most of the surrounding economy isn't using Bitcoin it still wouldn't have the positive feedback loops that caused the Great Depression under the gold standard, though.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_prices


Why do you think "forces of supply and demand will keep the value stable"? Bitcoin is much more susceptible to huge valuation fluctuations than fiat currency, where central bank can step in to shift demand/supply.


I remember reading that it's only divisible by 10^100.


only


I meant only, because if Bitcoin effectively becomes the leading world currency 10^100 might not be enough. However it shouldn't be hard to change that limit, or to find a way around it.


You have no idea how big 10^100 is.

That is 1.4 * 10^90 (atomic units of bitcoin) for everyone on earth. There are only around 1.2 * 10^12 actual US dollar coins and notes in the world, and only 1.2 * 10^13 dollars if you count all of M2 money supply.


So can gold. It's not the question of dividing it up.


And weighting, assaying, and using the tiny divisions of gold has a steep upwards cost as the amount of gold gets smaller.




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