Topic: Bitcoin as a "Global Unit of Account"? - page 2. (Read 519 times)

If this is really the case then bitcoin has indirectly unified the world, where bitcoin is one of the universal standards for currency. Unlike today, where the currency of one country is different in value from the currency of another country. I further imagine that the world will become one country that is only separated by region, climate and geographical location.

In this type of world, everyone would begin demanding a stable form of currency where the government would again organize a system of currency issuance backed by bitcoin. Many years after this, the central bank will remove itself from the bitcoin standard similar to what many countries did with the gold standard hehehe. The present financial system is not perfect, however, bitcoin will also not make it perfect.

Short answer: No
The following are my reasons to support my argument:
1. Not every country will allow bitcoins, ex: North Korea
2. Volatility will cause massive trouble for certain occasions
3. Not everyone does have access to internet or even a simple mobile phone
4. Local markets would not work in countries with economic probelms
5. Not everyone would be able to use it, it does need a minimum technical knowledge
6. Banks can't become obsolete, no matter what they are important to maintain healthy economic balance
7. There would be a fight for power and dominance admist countries and they would try and own bitcoins themselves
8. There would be too many regulations

I think it's possible only with second-layer solutions. The blockchain cannot handle the amount of transactions that would occur. Also, given the volatility of Bitcoin, I think it would still be useful to set prices in something different (at least, for internal pricing purposes), and then update the actual price in BTC in real time (or every few hours). Using Bitcoin as money won't automatically make the coin more stable. Volatility might just be seen differently. Say, one day you spend 0,0001 BTC on a cup of coffee, and in a few days you can afford to buy three cups for 0,0002. That's how you'd know that the value has changed, and what USD currently does is simply gives a useful reference point, but it doesn't even have to be in fiat.

It doesn't even need to be the main unit, I'll still be happy, if it's only as a recognized payment alternative, for example. Don't be considered as an enemy to an institution or a party that doesn't like Bitcoin. Globally this would be hard to imagine.

I can only say this is difficult, because so far the adoption is still less than 25% how the world will not allow Bitcoin to be too powerful. There will always be the opposition to thwart it. The absence of a control center is clearly a strong consideration and will be a big obstacle. If we talk about the future, maybe every country will use their own digital currency with a version that is much more crypto-friendly.

A dev once told me once they could just increase the decimals from 8 to 16, so a new naming unit would probably be needed, unless you want to deal with "old satoshis" and "new satoshis".

Lightning already added 4 more but that is "off chain".

So if the single satoshi becomes way too expensive, an easy fix can be implemented.

As for your opinion, unfortunately the State can get in the way. Some people would want to, but the State is forbidding them from freely accepting payments and pay with bitcoin. But with time, as the old politicians retire, the younger generation who is far more open to bitcoin, will ensure the necessary changes are in place so this can be done.

The final goal is to be able to pay and be paid with bitcoin. no exchanges, no banks, no middlemen.

---

1. Fluctuation will naturally reduce overtime, just like gold.
2. Many people use the USD as a reference, but what if the USD collapses? It will likely pull other fiats into inflation as well, so the reference might as well change to something else like gold.

The bitcoin purchase power can only increase overtime, but should be lower and lower increases, it would eventually get nearly stable but who knows how many years that would take, maybe a century or two...

Knowing the advantages of using bitcoin does not have to lead us to the permanent idea of eliminating the existence of Fiat.

The different currencies have coexisted for years with an "exaggerated dominance of the Dollar" but far from eliminating or trying to make other currencies disappear, the dollar has benefited from that comparison, so bitcoin is doing the same.

Hihi, no you won't have problems with the price in USD or your local currency but that would still mean the prices in BTC will not be stable themselves, and they will never be. If everyone, every single person would ditch fiat and stick to a limited supply of coins depending on the number of goods transacted or the size of the economies on global level prices will still be floating around, so there won't be true stabilization.
If for example we would only had bitcoin during this covid mess prices would still have gone up, it's a matter of supply and demand so although 1 bitcoin would have bought you more goods than the equivalent in USD over a longer period it would still have been less than a year an ago. Same for the other situation where you have an economic boom and it will be more valuable in terms of what you can buy with it.

The 0.000 thingy is a false problem anyhow, switch to satoshis, if poeple can deal with paying 20000 VND for one liter of gas they for sure will have no problem paying 5000 sat for the same.

1. For something like this to happen, I expect that we may need Bitcoin price fluctuate much less.
2. Don't forget that as long as the main currency of a country is fiat, the shop will have the prices primarily in the country's fiat and then converted to all other currencies.

So no, unfortunately I don't expect the prices be shown primarily in bitcoin. Not everywhere.
For all the countries give up their tools for inflation (i.e. stealing money) we need a powerful change. Maybe even a radical change in the way some people end up taking decisions for the countries.

I get what you’re trying, but I can’t really imagine the world with just one asset being used. Bitcoin has a fixed supply and it might get to a point where that might become another problem for people around the world, unless maybe when it gets to that time they will look for a way to fix it, maybe by increasing the amount of supply? This topic has been discussed several times in this forum.

I am of the opinion that all can stay, and people should be completely free to choose for themselves at every moment what they want to make use of. And same way, stores can decide whether to display their product prices in BTC or in USD, or whatever currency.

Probably not possible if it's not going to be the global reserve currency. But because local currencies will also not disappear, it will just be as is that you could use either an asset or currency.

I'd like to think BTC will be accepted anywhere though, it won't matter if the price will not be as the unit but the local currency as long as it can be used very casually just about anywhere.

I am shaking my head on this proposal. If the whole world agreed and made BTC the global unit of account, I reckon it would make it appear that the amount of everything you can buy to be volatile. 1 cup of coffee at present would be 10% more or less on the next week, 100% or more on the next month during bull markets. This will cause stablecoins to be the safe haven hehehehe.

The first step would be to start using sats instead of ₿

If you're from the US, UK, Australia, NZ, and others, it might seem like there are many zeros when using sats, but that's pretty common in many countries:

https://www.fiatmarketcap.com/

Using sats is also usually linked with lightning usage. That means people will become more used to fast, instantaneous transfers with lightning.

Businesses might start posting the price in sats and local currency in their screens, like McDonald's self checkout for example.

People over time already are used to seeing the fiat prices slowly going up. It would be normal as well to see the sats price to go down. It will be a great thing to see actually.

We're still not there yet, definitely. But I can imagine a world with that, where you get paid in Bitcoin, and use Bitcoin to pay for stuff. Because they're both linked of course, when you pay in Bitcoin for something, someone is getting paid in Bitcoin. And more interestingly, we already have ways to almost get there. Strike now gives people in the US and El Salvador the opportunity to get paid in Bitcoin. Basically you give the bank details from the Strike app to your employer, and set how much percentage of your salary to be converted into Bitcoin, with no extra fees.

It will be a great world to live in. For now, we're in a transition phase. The Bitcoin Standard will be amazing. The earlier you hop in, the better you'll be in the future.

Bitcoin is a Global unit of acoount . Because it a business adopted by from all corner of the world. So it is a global business and its account is a Global kind of account. So it is also possible that BTC in the future will become a Global currency or a Global cryptocurrency. So the future of the BTC looks very bright because the number of BTC users is continuously increasing. Youngsters, old or teenager are eagerly joining this business. So in future, its account will be called "Global Unit of Account"?

I really doubt this. The highest success that Bitcoin could probably achieve is that it will become a global reserve currency. That's in addition to it being also used alongside fiat as acceptable payment in all countries around the world. That means Bitcoin is the only money that you could use anywhere in the world without having to make conversions first.

But this does not mean that fiat will completely perish. Fiat will evolve. Meaning, the prices of goods and services are still offered in fiat as well. I'm saying this because it is unimaginable that governments would let go of perhaps the largest power they have and that's the power over money.

Just use the satoshi directly, its not a big deal.

The bitcoin is just shorthand for "a 100 million satoshis".

Why say "0.000025 BTC" when you could just say "2500 satoshis"?

Its not that hard, countries like Japan and South Korea don't bother with cents, that's obsolete.

Yes, possible for a certain places but online, it's very likely.

Units could be named as btc, satoshi or any where people are confident. The most important part is that everyone knows the unit of bitcoin for everyone to easily understand.

And whatever is they're confident of using, go for it as everyone can convert that unit to the unit they're confident and aware of.

This kind of world will only exist in the urban area of a country (or on our mind), but those country place that internet is not a thing, slow, or not fully accessible, I mean in the backwoods, then there's no way people can pay, buy, things they needs.
 
But if it happens then rural places doesn't exist anymore at that time.

It certainly could be a parallel system for payments over time.  As time progresses and people see the value of their fiat holdings inflating away, it could take more and more of the market for it.  It really is a simple question:  who do you trust to store the value of your assets?  Math or a corrupt centralized fiat based central bank that is beholden to politicians?


People are not stupid regardless of what the so-called "elites" tend to think (e.g. Bette Midler).  They can figure out pretty quickly that the politicians only have the politician's best interest at heart, not the people's best interest.  Sure they can fool a lot of people for a while - look at AOC, Bernie, Chavez, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and their ilk - but long term people realize that they are purely selfish authoritarians who are hoodwinking them.

Yes, every-day bitcoin purchases will eventually be quite mainstream. Global? Probably not.

The honest truth is that countries will fight for their CBDC's role in their respective economy. Many countries will not be please to see a mass exodus of their currencies users. To combat this they (like India) will aim to ban bitcoin as a medium of exchange, but not as an asset class.