Crypto currency miners/users aren't coin collectors, they're people who want money and/or believe in the rightness/goodness/whateverness of the crypto currency concept. The value of something, while certainly influenced by its scarcity, is not purely a function of said scarcity. Its functionality is important too, what can be done with it, how useful it is for those functions, are there better things to use for it, etc. For instance, there's a GREAT HUGE amount of ounces of gold in the world, MUCH MUCH more than 21 million, but an ounce of gold is still worth more than a bitcoin, even if bitcoins go to ten times their current value. And the reason for this is that gold is very useful as a store of value. It's easily divisible(as are almost all metals), it's reasonably rare, it's difficult(although not, unfortunately, impossible) to counterfeit, and it DOES have certain real world applications, such as jewelry and electronics.
What you forget is that Netcoin will be years after Bitcoin. By the time Netcoin gets it's chance Bitcoin will already be a success already or not and the infrastructure will already exist. The utility of cryptocurrencies is already becoming obvious to people and will be even more obvious in the future.
What I'm saying is we don't need another Bitcoin. We need something which offers improvements. Being more scarce than Bitcoin by an order of magnitude is in my opinion an improvement and if Netcoin does not do this then it wont compete with Mincoin, Bitbar, or whatever more scarce coin is out there. It's about evolution and to evolve the coin must improve in all areas including scarcity.
A crypto currency doesn't have a lot of things that gold has, but it DOES have some of the things that are most important for a currency. Namely, scarcity and divisibility. However, being ridiculously scarce isn't always a good thing. Sure, it may hold some value, even great value, as a store of wealth. But one thing that a currency NEEDS in order to be successful is widespread acceptance and use. Gold has been used as money by almost every known civilization that has ever existed and had the capability to mine and refine it. But you know, platinum is worth a lot too, and it's very rare. How come no one has ever used THAT as a currency? Because it's TOO rare. All the platinum that has ever been mined in the history of the world could fit in a single cube measuring 25' to a side. That's not ENOUGH for it to be used as a currency in any but the smallest of nations.
Bits aren't tangible they are information. So comparing it to gold and platinum is irrelevant. We can make cryptocurrencies as scarce as we want. We could make it so scarce that there are only 1000 that ever exist. I'm not saying I would want that but there is nothing in mathematics which says it couldn't happen and so some coins are going to keep pushing those boundaries and guess what? People are going to eventually choose those coins because their money will be worth much more in those coins. My point is that if you introduce a new coin it should be a little bit more scarce than whatever else is out there as a way to market your new coin and to make people trade their old coins for your new coin. Why would I trade my Bitcoin or Mincoin for Netcoins if I know my Bitcoin is already worth more, already used more, I mean come on what incentive do I have to trade?
Crypto currencies are meant to be worldwide currencies. Sure, you can divide them up into smaller and smaller pieces, but even then, it's not very much when you consider the population of the WORLD.
~7,000,000,000 with 21,000,000 bitcoins. Obviously, not everyone will have a whole bitcoin, or even a tenth of a bitcoin. And that's assuming that no bitcoin has ever been lost, and never will be.
Not everyone has a billion dollars either. But some people are billionaires. If we make everyone a billionaire then it's not capitalism anymore. Some people have to get very rich and some not, that is just how markets work. To try to put everyone on the same level provides no incentive for people to play the game.
Personally, I think that the 21 million mark is about as low as you can go and expect to get actual acceptance worldwide as an everyday currency, which should be your goal in a project like this. Honestly, I think Litecoin is much closer to a good mark with their 84 mil.
I disagree. I think 10 million is the lowest right now(21 million was good for 2009 because fewer knew about Bitcoin), and that is not the lowest it could go. I think the lowest it could go and make sense would around the amount of current users of Bitcoin. Let's estimate that 2 million people know about Bitcoin and are using it right now. The lowest we could reasonably go would then be 2 million. I'm saying the lowest we could go should be based on the size of the community where each member of the community could get at least 1 coin. You're thinking about people who don't know about Bitcoin yet and saying in 4 - 5 years when those people stop thinking about it as a ponzi scheme or something to buy drugs with, that they will want coins. Yes they'll want coins then but there is no reason why we should generate coins merely to make the non-believers and late adopters rich. I'm saying the minimum to generate is enough to support the current community. 21 million is way bigger than the current Bitcoin community. 10 million which Mincoin supports is way bigger than the current cryptocurrency community. If it were less than 2 million coins then it's a nonsense because then it's not enough coins for everyone in the community to at least have a coin.
As the community expands, no I don't think that number should grow. I think the number should shrink. Meaning we have 2 million members give or take right now? In a year it could be 10 million, right? Mincoin would still outpace that. In 3 years it could be 50-100 million people and by then because the demand would so outnumber the supply this is when the value would have to shoot way way up, but this is a good thing because it funds the development of alt coins and funds the community. So I agree unlimited scarcity wont work in practice for a currency, neither would unlimited inflation. And I don't think 21 million makes sense because when Bitcoin was made no one knew it would be a success or not and the 21 million was considered good for that time, but if the boundaries are not pushed then evolution doesn't take place. Push the boundaries when you can safely do so and I think 10 million is safe.
tldr; some mild scarcity can be good for a currency, lots of scarcity usually isn't good for a currency that's more than a place to store value until you convert it to something else.
Lots of scarcity is fine when you can just break the currency up infinitely. If Netcoin is worth 2 Bitcoins each then everyone with Bitcoin will trade for Netcoins. This is necessary for the same reason that Bitcoin had to be 21 million so everyone with dollars would trade for Bitcoin. If Bitcoin were 1:1 with dollars why would anyone trade their dollars in? Netcoin has to be more scarce than Bitcoin for the exchange value. If it's worth exactly the same as Bitcoin why not just use Bitcoin? Even if Netcoin is better technology, if it costs a Bitcoin people will go with Bitcoin.
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Ok yet to be announced. 