In the long term cold storage of freicoins is a losing proposition, but for now it makes sense. Freicoin's value will be speculative until an economy develops around it.
...but doesn't the development of an economy built around FRC's depend on capital formation?
Yes. Assuming by capital you mean production goods as opposed to monetary tokens.
How that's incompatible with the currency.
Doesn't this system encourage those that wish to use FRC's as currency to treat them like hot potatoes and dump them for something that's not taxed?
To treat them as the medium of exchange only. For example, they will prefer to invest on producing goods (capital) rather than holding freicoins.
But before that, forget about taxation, this is a p2p currency, not a coercive goverment. Freicoin demurrage fees are as close to "taxes" as bitcoin transaction fees are.
Again, it sounds like fiat currency...tell me where I'm wrong.
It's hard to tell from what you've said...The most accepted definition of fiat money is "whose circulation is enforce by law". Since this is a voluntary currency it is clearly not fiat.
I assume you're equating demurrage with money printing. Apart from representing a transfer of value, money printing does little to maintain velocity during "bad times". They keep on creting bigger and bigger quantities while each time the effect on velocity is lower. They have the limit in zero artificial interest rates and despite what they say they can't destroy money back (reduce central bank's balance sheet) as fast as they've created it when velocity starts accelerating again, when all those previously idle piles of cash flow to the market again and threaten with hyperinflation.
When I say "artificial zero rates" I mean they're unnatural for everlasting money and can be only achieved by manipulating the financial market through an institution that can virtually eat infinite losses such as a central bank.
Silvio Gesell predicted the collapse of paper money without demurrage when it was just starting. Either the money managers accept the deflationary cycle or they will destroy their currency by hyperinflation:
http://www.community-exchange.org/docs/Gesell/en/neo/part3/13.htmIn certain sense he also predicted the Ron Paul/goldbug movement in this sentence in which he refers to a global fiat system without demurrage (basically what we have since Nixon):
"A reform of this kind would be short-lived and would bring the possibility of the greatest fraud ever practised upon mankind. After such an attempt at reform the people, as in the past, would believe that their salvation lay in the gold standard and would clamour for its re-introduction."
I hope this helps. While I would recommend you to read the whole book (skipping the first to parts on free/land if you want), don't hesitate to make "hard questions": we'll try to answer the best we can.