Dan Held Expressed: Fiat – ∞; Gold – ∞; Bitcoin – 21M

Community Response: Think about how much gold exists in the universe. It’s probably an amount that’s not comprehendible to humans.

Gold in other galaxies is irrelevant as we can’t access any of it. What counts is what’s here on earth. Perhaps, one day what’s in our solar system. But there will likely be far more uses for that gold once we have the capability to access it. Bitcoin will be irrelevant by then.

Technically, bitcoin’s supply can be broken down into infinite pieces, expanding its purchasing power with each expansionary cycle.

That makes absolutely no sense. Middle school math. Cutting a pie into infinitely small pieces doesn’t give you more pie

Gold is not infinite. And, before an idiot comes to tell me “Think about the amount of gold in the universe” Now, you think what it would cost us to extract that gold.  It would be expensive for us to go to other corners of the universe to extract gold.

How much gold exists now exactly?  Infinite amount of decimals for 21 million though. Right?

There’s not an infinite supply of gold.  Gold is not infinite. That is why it is expensive.

Although, there can only ever be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins, because people have lost their private keys or have died without leaving their private key instructions to anybody, the actual amount of available bitcoins in circulation could actually be millions less.

Claiming that there’s an infinite supply of gold, or that estimates of the extra-terrestrial gold supply is of any relevance to our economy doesn’t withstand any serious scrutiny. The expense, and foreseeable future expenses, of making any of that gold available is astronomical.

It’s ludicrous that people naïvely assume that the only challenge to getting stuff “down from orbit” is getting people up into orbit. Slowing stuff down from higher orbits to match Earth’s orbital velocity is just as expensive as accelerating anything to get at it.

Gold isn’t infinite.  The universe is constantly creating more gold.  Technically, Bitcoin supply could be increased but it is highly, highly, highly unlikely, since it would require getting thousands of people (adding more probably each day) to agree to it. Fiat is easy since it only takes a few people (or one) to decide to increase the supply.

Bitcoin = Man made, Destructible. Gold = God made, exists forever. We don’t live forever so we choose Bitcoin.