Regarding Bitmonero, I wouldn't consider Bitcoin style distribution to be "good economics." We've learned a lot in 5 years and should definitely be doing things differently to improve adoption and increase trade. Also, most coins (including BTC) have characteristics that favor treating them as investments rather than as a medium of exchange.
Do we need another fork? Absolutely. We need a coin that will be just as accessible in 50 years as it will be the day it launches. I don't think we've seen that yet, and even if we have, there's nothing wrong with letting the market decide what characteristics it wants in a currency. The more forks, the better. Let the cream rise to the top.
This is actually interesting. Do you mean a non-decreasing block reward? Or significant perpetual inflation of some other sort?
That is
exactly what I mean. Wow. I thought I was being vague. You either took a random stab in the dark or you see the fundamental flaw of almost every cryptocurrency out there. A fixed money supply with a decreasing block reward is destined to fail. You can't have proof of work with infinite work and only finite proof. What happens when the proof runs out? Miners won't work for free, and transaction fees won't cut it by themselves. New work must yield new proof.
There are room for all kinds, as he said. That I agree with. I also agree with you that BTC's investment model is part of its success, and it should be self evident that its success far eclipses all others. Is that solely first-mover advantage or does it have something to do with the economics? I don't know. Let the best coin win. Every coin that dies makes the survivors stronger. In fact you can argue that's the only thing that makes them strong. We'll see how it works out.
I think the popularity growth of said coins has more to do with a lack of understanding of the economics than the long term implications of them. A decentralized, trustless system of exchange sounds great. A fixed money supply that absolutely cannot inflate sounds great... but it's not sustainable, and it definitely won't remain decentralized.
Everyone argues about how coins should be distributed at the beginning (BCN has been out for 2 years and noone knew? How unfair.) We should be much more concerned with how a coin will be distributed 20 or 30 years from now. Here's a hint: if the difficulty is high and the block reward is low, then the currency is in deep shit.
Unfortunately, the type of coin that sees success in the exchanges is not the type of coin that will succeed long-term as a currency. We also can't count on the masses to know what is good for them. The masses will always believe in simple logic and only follow what's popular or trending. They will never engage in the critical thinking required to truly understand how these systems work. This is why I believe we have a responsibility to know our domain inside and out... because the coins we choose to embrace will be the ones they eventually adopt.
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