I'll buy them as a speculator, because I expect their price to rise, the same reason why I own bitcoin.
I don't think this is a smart reason.
"I will buy it because it will rise because other will buy it because it will rise ... "
Yes, Bitcoin behaves very similarly to this, but Bitcoin has a clear advantage over its predecessors, while it seems Freicoin has no such advantage, and has to compete with a big market leader, and Freicoins "feature" over it is actually a deterrent to acquiring/hoarding it.
Well, good luck with it ... time will tell whether I'm right about it or not.
You don't see it as an advantage, because you ignore some of the costs associated with capital money, like capital yields that can't drop to zero by competition like other economic profits (therefore they're capital rents to a certain point) or monetary cycles.
You don't believe a world with only bitcoin as currency and without fractional reserve would cause monetary cycles, but it would, just like gold has caused them many times before. My point is, they will have a value before merchants accept them.
I'll buy them as a speculator, because I expect their price to rise
Er... you'll speculate that their price will rise faster than they'll incur demurrage fees? Isn't the idea of Freicoin to
discourage hoarding? Now you're saying that the only way it can take off is if early adopters hoard it?
Yes, sound kind of contradictory. Hoarding it may make sense while the number of users keeps growing.
The point I was trying to make is that they will have a price/value before eny merchant accepts them, just like bitcoin had.
I was thinking about the regression theorem there. Was trying to answer the question.
If Freicoin had been the first crypto-currency, it might have worked. In fact, I believe it would have attracted a very different crowd and attitude too. But as others have suggested in this thread and I'm sure I have at various points in the past, Freicoin isn't going to bring anything new enough to the table. Maybe when bitcoin collapses another 2 or 3 times people will be looking elsewhere. Freicoin is apparently going to still be based on many of the same principles but with the "losing money over time" feature, so I think that it is destined to be JACC* and not really a successor. You should be looking to beat bitcoin to a pulp with the awesomeness of your currency, not "well, Silvio Gesell says this.."
* just another crypto-currency
I expect it to have a more stable value. What do you think about it?
As for the initial distribution problem, newly-generated freicoins will be sent to the miners. The problem won't be “how do you get people buy freicoins?” but rather “how will we give the miners something to buy?” Initial liquidity may be provided by someone like @jtimon investing based on perceived future value, but this would a relatively short-term stopgap measure until the merchant tools are in place and full circles of commerce can be established. Shortly thereafter market forces will stabalize the Freicoin price, and it ceases to be worthwhile investment to hold on to.
Exactly. A money will always need merchants. I was just talking about the initial value.
@jtimon, there isn't a faq per se but there is a series of questions-and-answers at the end of the campaign proposal.
Should we start a wiki or something?
Freicoin is definitely a step in the right direction, but it is not nearly enough to overcome the first-to-market power of bitcoin.
I hope you're wrong here. But of course I can't prove it.
