If the digital currency doesn't have any significantly attractive qualities outside its use as a store of value, it's a shitty currency.
If you can make a currency that people will use on a day to day basis, voluntarily, despite having 4% inflation (which is a much better target, economically -- the 2% is the weaksauce compromise with the anti-inflationists), then you've created something which has real utility.
To have that, the currency must be widely accepted. To have THAT, you need widespread adoption. But to have widespread adoption, you need a reason outside of its immediate utility for people to voluntarily use the currency. There are existing cryptocurrencies that are pretty close to what you're describing (freicoin), but they are not popular because there's no incentive for adoption. So if you don't have the beginning deflation, you need some other method of bootstrapping.
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Well, that's the problem.
If the digital currency doesn't have any significantly attractive qualities outside its use as a store of value, it's a shitty currency.
If you can make a currency that people will use on a day to day basis, voluntarily, despite having 4% inflation (which is a much better target, economically -- the 2% is the weaksauce compromise with the anti-inflationists), then you've created something which has real utility.
To have that, the currency must be widely accepted. To have THAT, you need widespread adoption. But to have widespread adoption, you need a reason outside of its immediate utility for people to voluntarily use the currency. There are existing cryptocurrencies that are pretty close to what you're describing (freicoin), but they are not popular because there's no incentive for adoption. So if you don't have the beginning deflation, you need some other method of bootstrapping.