A Thought on Bitcoin's Volatility and Deflation
I've said it for a long time that bitcoin's extreme volatility will work against its adaptation as either a mainstream currency or store of value.
I thought about this last night when waiting to fall asleep and a thought occurred to me.
BTC's high volatility is a fact, but at least partially artificial, and not necessary. The volatility has to do with the fact that its value is being compared with FIAT.
All goods have volatility from sugar to copper, to oil; their value in terms of euros or dollars changes every day. There's a reason we don't care about this in our daily lives, and that reason is the fact that when you go to the store to purchase these goods, they cost the same every day.
The value of the euro compared to the dollar also changes on a daily basis, but we never notice it because the prices don't change.
In other words, the way to rid BTC of its extreme volatility would be its mass adoption as an everyday currency. As opposed to the current mindset, which is that we need to wait for the volatility to magically disappear on its own before a mass adoption can happen. It probably won't be going anywhere on its own.
If a product is priced in BTC at the store, and it's 0.002 BTC every day, the price won't change even if BTC's price in USD changes.
This way, BTC will be perceived as stable, and due to deflation prices would probably go lower in the long run, actually.
And before someone comes in to tell me that deflation is a bad thing, I disagree. Consider this:
If deflation was such a bad thing, why doesn't it decrease spending when stores go on sales? In the contrary, they increase spending.
Deflation and a lowered price level doesn't end spending and/or investing because:
People have a time preference; it's more fun to get a product now than waiting for next week - even though the product could be cheaper next week.
All consuming and investing comes with an availability risk; if a product costs X today, and we are to assume that the price keeps going lower and lower, it's possible that the product won't exist next week, so it's better to be sure and get the product today if you really want it.
For some reason I don't see crypto going mainstream, well not as we think. For instance Australia is planning to become cashless sociality by 2020, meaning all payments and transactions are going to be instantaneous 24/7, and I'm betting that the Government and Banks already have their own blockchain technology(s) to replace the fiat printing and prevent money laundry / tax evasion etc etc.
I don't know but I can't see that much adoption of crypto in even the next 10 years.
In 10 years? I guess I'm optimistic enough to see some in 10 years. But in 5 years? Probably not. A lot of things would need to change. It's simply not a priority right now for anyone; crypto is a way to make fiat, first and foremost.
It's a shame, but it is what it is. If we were able to just use crypto, we wouldn't have to worry about taxes when cashing out to fiat.
Fiat being bullshit was the original idea behind crypto.
Back in my day.
Haha, that's true. Crypto was made to takeover fiat, now crypto is used to make more fiat.
Haha, exactly.
Good job friends
Cryptocurrencies are just vehicles for speculation at the moment. The first ones to be generally accepted for buying Real Stufftm on existing retail platforms, if any, will win the race and find some stability. This is also why all Steem marketing so far has been completely misguided and needs to step out into the real world and negotiate with the existing retail players.
I don't know what's the cause for this crash, correction or whatever we want to call it, it may be working against its adoption but I also believe that it's somehow good for the market. Crypto assets are being used for a lot of things, from making fiat to accumulate bitcoin or other top ''currencies'', I think people don't usually care about volatility because we live in a false state of security where changes are slowly admitted for a lot of reasons, but who knows if mass adoption will ever come or if that will be it's destiny.