This is a very vague discussion level post.
Im wondering what kind of societal, economic, market, political and psychological changes might come about to society, business and various other facets of life if BitCoin was to become a widely used currency. (We can also talk about what's going to stop it from being so, tho that's widely covered elsewhere too.)
Im thinking a few very vague notions:
- bitcoins are nominally worth current technology x current cost of power. What would this do to the cost of power if massive mining by members of an electricity market was undertaken?
- since power is loosely related to the cost of oil and gas, what does this mean for the heating market and energy markets?
- attaching microvalues to all messages sent/actions undertaken by all people, to underscore their sincerity - will this result in the (nearly) infinitely-divisible fractal monetization of much of human activity even down to the interpersonal level? What does that mean for fuzzy-valuations of common-goods and community that we all intuitively understand and engage in - will they be strictly monetized? What will markets in such fora look like?
- economics 101 - when a currency is infinitely liquid (as btc may become with cell phones automatically chattering payments to eachother at high rates during normal social or commercial intercourse), what happens to economies that run on them?
- how about competing BitCoin networks? How about an huge number of different semi private BitCoin networks/currencies?
Cmon, get your thinking caps on, i wanna see the next Neil Stephenson novel taking shape in this forum