I don't see how a currency like BTC would deflate, ever, besides runs on the market. At least if BTC became a real market force. Right now, almost all BTC transactions are between currencies like USD, so it is functioning more like stock than real money.
If it were legitimately used in widespread transactions, the currencies market wouldn't impact the valuation as much, and without that turbulance, since BTC's can't "disappear" under your couch, and you have a mathematically fixed growth rate up through 2140, the currency shouldn't deflate. Just as a frequently cited example, the US had a crisis in the 70's not because pegging the dollar to gold was bad, but because the real gold reserves were covering vastly less of the actual dollars in the market drastically due to money printing.
BTC doesn't have those issues - they are fixed in circulation, have a predictable rate of disbursement that will slow to nothing in 2140, and at that point the exchange rates for goods with BTC would only fluctuate its fixed value against other currencies or against goods scarcity. I wouldn't imagine, if it actually became a well grounded currency, significant swathes of the market making a run on it and depreciating its value as badly by that point. It lets you keep currency speculation, though, without the rampant inflationary effects of quantitative easing and money printing at whims.
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I don't see how a currency like BTC would deflate, ever, besides runs on the market. At least if BTC became a real market force. Right now, almost all BTC transactions are between currencies like USD, so it is functioning more like stock than real money.
If it were legitimately used in widespread transactions, the currencies market wouldn't impact the valuation as much, and without that turbulance, since BTC's can't "disappear" under your couch, and you have a mathematically fixed growth rate up through 2140, the currency shouldn't deflate. Just as a frequently cited example, the US had a crisis in the 70's not because pegging the dollar to gold was bad, but because the real gold reserves were covering vastly less of the actual dollars in the market drastically due to money printing.
BTC doesn't have those issues - they are fixed in circulation, have a predictable rate of disbursement that will slow to nothing in 2140, and at that point the exchange rates for goods with BTC would only fluctuate its fixed value against other currencies or against goods scarcity. I wouldn't imagine, if it actually became a well grounded currency, significant swathes of the market making a run on it and depreciating its value as badly by that point. It lets you keep currency speculation, though, without the rampant inflationary effects of quantitative easing and money printing at whims.