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@ mister_monster
2025-05-15 04:45:18
Man what a discussion you guys are having.
Youre not wrong you know, if your investment can't outperform a savings account it is not a worthwhile investment. But there's a problem with hard cap currency, it's worth noting no such currency existed in the world, ever, except bitcoin.
That problem is this: I want to invest in some worthwhile endeavor, so I take capital and put it towards that endeavor. That leads to economic growth, which leads to increased value of the currency, because now more items chasing the same money, the opposite problem of monetary debasement. I can siphon some of the wealth from what you create via this process simply by holding currency. This is the exact inverse of the cantillion effect.
So more people catch on to this. Hey, I don't have to produce anything with my sweat and imagination and capital, I can just get a little piece of what everyone else does by holding the money they want for it. What we have here is a very interesting tragedy of the commons, one of two particular ones caused by a hard cap supply currency, the other I've spoken about and you can find in my public bookmarks if you want.
What this inevitably leads to is a stagnation of economic output, artificially, you can say that it is self regulating and that would be true more often than not, output stagnates so the money stops climbing in value so the people look for other avenues to gain wealth and start investing again. But it suppresses economic exploration, it has the exact opposite effect as fiat debasement has, where fiat debasement incentivizes valueless investment just to have somewhere to pur capital that doesn't lose value, this has the effect of people not creating as many amazing things as they otherwise would've. The self regulation regulates lower than natural and optimal, just like a continuous percentage of supply self regulates higher than optimal.
Ideally, the concept of supply pacing exactly with growth of economic output is ideal, money never loses or gains purchasing power, the only way to gain wealth is to create it, and deciding not to participate costs you nothing. Of course, that's impossible. Behind that, a self regulating supply increase, that is, when the money goes up in value people produce more of it, otherwise they invest elsewhere, is fantastic. It can't be optimal all the time, but it is most optimal IMO. Gold has this property. The other one, algorithmic linear debasement, a flat amount every x periods of time, is also fantastic, it can't be optimal all the time, it smooths the effect a capped supply has and allows graceful reorganizing of the market indefinitely, but it still does downregulate economic production a little bit.