Interesting. Btw.. Why mktcap Z-cash > Monero? #asknostr

Availability on tier one marketplaces. Speculation as seen as leading ZKPs running implementation ? Optionality seen as flexibility ? Shorter block time / quicker confirmation ? Smaller adoption and higher volatility seen as opportunities ? Image not associated with DNMs ? Supply schedule including yet to come shocks ?

Bitcoin is Austrian.

no Austrian ever tried to argue the number of monetary units should be fixed.

Nope, in the Austrian school, medium of exchange is the most important quality of money and nothing can become a store of value without being the most accepted medium of exchange. Money is the thing which serves as the generally accepted and commonly used medium of exchange. This is its only function. All the other functions which people ascribe to money are merely particular aspects of its primary and sole function, that of a medium of exchange. - Ludwig Von Mises

Why would people use something as a medium of exchange that cannot keep its value? This is why SoV almost always precedes MoE. Bitcoin is a great SoV and MoE. Arguably the best of both ever.

Have we ever had the option before?

never, in the history of economic thought, did anyone ever say "you know what would be great? if we could just fix the supply side of the price of money to a constant." because it's a stupid idea.

Mises disagrees with you. SOV usage derives from people being able to *use money to exchange* for goods they need.

oh sorry. reading...

Gold has been used for a long time and it also has always had an inflation rate based on the mining. Also, the dollar is used by the poors as the cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry pile of Fiat. So inflation doesn't preclude SoV use. And people aren't entirely logical in their selection based on the least inflation. It's all a delicate balance of many different factors, all implicitly going into the equation. I guess with BTC we're going to be heading into uncharted SoV deflationary territory. Are there any examples of deflationary stores of value, and how they worked economically? I guess BTC so far is one example.

I don't know of any other deflationary currencies, but I have come to the conclusion that an inflation rate similar to or less than Gold's inflation is actually beneficial and necessary because of its impact on velocity of money. One of the things we have witnessed with Bitcoin is its lack of inflation has had a negative impact on its use as money causing people to hoard it and not spend it which makes it not very good as a medium of exchange, which as mises said, is the single most important quality of good money.