We certainly know that for any digital currency, including Bitcoin and DNotes, to meet the full functions of money is not a small undertaking. DNotes has gone to great lengths in positioning itself to be in the best positioned to accomplish that status one day – serving as a bridge between the decentralized and the centralized world with multiple large scale global projects.
At issues are stability in the value of the currency and reliable store of value. DNotes’ ecosystem and road map going follow place very high emphasis in accomplishing those goals.
Bitcoin is a Speculative Asset, Not a Currency, Says Economics ProfessorLester Coleman on 20/05/2017
Jeffrey Dorfman, an economics professor at the University of Georgia, sees bitcoin as an asset rather than a currency. Writing in Forbes that value of the cryptocurrency increased 140% in 2016 and 49% in the past month, Dorfman maintains the swings in either an upward or downward direction do not make bitcoin a plausible currency as much as a speculative asset.
Bitcoin does not make a good currency for two key reasons: its unstable value and its slow transaction time.
Dorfman claims the most important feature a currency has is being a stable store of value. This factor is important to a developing economy trying to attract investment. It is also important for developed countries to allow investors to earn the returns they expect on investments. An unstable currency makes it difficult for investors to predict the value of future earnings.
Because uncertainty makes investments less valuable, less investment occurs.
Bitcoin Price Swings
The value of bitcoin changed an average 2% over the last month, Dorfman noted. The exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the euro, by contrast, was under 1% and only changed 3% for the full month. There were seven days when the value of the cryptocurrency changed more than 3%, which is more than the dollar’s value changed for the full month.
People do not want debts or investments denominated in a currency with value changing by nearly 50% monthly, Dorfman observed.
As for transactions, bitcoin is slow due to the process of protecting the security of its blockchain.
There are restrictions on how many bitcoin transactions can be completed in a day. Changing the rules for processing BTC transactions has met resistance in the bitcoin community from those who wish to preserve its traceability and anonymity.
Dorfman claims bitcoin’s security negates its value for everyday use.Read more:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/why-bitcoin-is-a-speculative-asset-not-a-currency/It concerns me that people like Dorfman should be allowed to teach young malleable minds - though I'm aware the academic world is the biggest 'bubble' of all. The biggest problem in academia is that professors are very alienated from reality, by teaching theoretical models that only loosely apply to the prevailing system of economy set in place. They become highly invested in their world-view, which is based in what benefits them the most - the status quo. Academia is often 'rote learning', and of course the discourse is limited to the happenings of highly controlled economy - I've got an economics degree, and it was taught at an institution rated as one of the best in the world - but in reality, that rating is grounded only in the ability to teach topics effectively that are 'approved' for status quo buy in. A further complication of academia, and relentless study of the status quo, is that every finding from studies based on the [failing] status quo are then extended to all other markets that are not bound by the same rules and assumptions. This professor is not wrong in his immediate view of digital currency - they have speculative asset value, but these 'assets' have the ability to fulfill the functions of money in the way that our 'modern money' never can, but adding a few minor caveats would have been more intellectually honest. Modern money can't even fulfill the functions of money at all (guaranteed loss of value over time, only exists as debt, fractional reserve banking means the vast majority of it doesn't even exist etc).
Incorrect assumptions:
1. Digital currencies (which Bitcoin is one of) will have unstable value forever. This is a very simple - any ecosystem must grow before mainstream adoption can occur. Any economics "expert" shouldn't even need to think twice about the fact that growth in any industry, stock, or currency requires large influxes of capital, and that the laws of supply and demand dictate that you can expect prices to rapidly shoot up when this occurs - creating a lot of instability along the way. When this outcome is logically extrapolated into the future, eventually a market that moves in this manner will stabilize over time. The number of people that are buying and selling will get much larger, making it much more difficult to move the price, even with large money flows in and out.
2. Digital currencies can evolve, and/or take market dominance from another.Bitcoin's blockchain can be upgraded, and many developments regarding transaction limits and speed have already been developed, and even third party applications like the lightning network implemented. There are also alternatives to Bitcoin (like DNotes), that may one day move into prominence that have unlimited transaction volume and instantly process payments.
Quite simply, the present and the future can look very different - of which Dr. Dorfman seemed to remember how to look ahead to the future when it came to criticizing bitcoin - [sic] "
An unstable currency makes it difficult for investors to predict the value of future earnings." -
The parts the professor left out (or that the reporter left out) are very important to the true state of the industry. Dr. Dorfman is criticizing the current state of an industry, when the other side are discussing its "potential". It's like saying that the mobile phone was no good back in the year 1995, because it didn't allow users to surf the internet like a computer could. We all know what happened there - with mobile internet access surpassing desktop usage in 2016.