BitCoins are a hybrid of two currency models, namely the current world standard of fiat currency (I.E. BitCoins only have value because other people will accept them in exchange for goods and services) and the traditional gold standard due to the availability being limited. Combined with the other properties such as transaction anonymity (within reason), no central system regulating transactions and worldwide reach BitCoins have all the features it needs to be a great vehicle for the transfer of wealth. Long time readers will know that there are some issues that plague the BitCoin ecosystem, mostly due to its relatively low transaction volume and misclassification as an investment vehicle by some, but these are things that can be solved with time and more investments.
One thing that always gets to me though is any time that BitCoins start to trend upward nearly every news outlet looking for a story will herald it as a second coming of BitCoin after the devastation wrought by the speculative bubble last year. I’ve made the case several times over that an increase in price is no indication of health within the BitCoin economy and in fact any sharp uptick in price is actually quite hurtful as it signals that BitCoins are better left unspent as it makes no sense to spend them when simply waiting will give you a discount. This hoarding mentality is what led to the speculative bubble last year as supply dried up and prices went through the roof. It didn’t last long however and the price came crashing back down to reality (and then some).
I don’t discount that all growth within the BitCoin economy is a bad thing however, just the volatility. Indeed there was a good period of 6 months this year when BitCoin’s price was relatively stable and that’s what it needs to be in order for commerce to take the currency seriously. Taking this idea further there has to be a price equilibrium where the exchange rate is truly representative of all the wealth contained with BitCoins and this is the point where the market should aim towards. Figuring out that particular price isn’t easy though and I can only really give a semi-education guess as an answer.
The longest time that BitCoin spent in relative stability was around the $5 mark from around May this year. Since then there have been another 1.2 million BitCoins added into circulation, an approximate 13% increase. In a completely stable exchange this would have put a downward pressure on the exchange rate which would have decreased the real value by a similar percentage. To keep the value “ideal” then, I.E. the real purchasing power the same, the exchange rate should go up by that rate instead giving us a new price of $5.65.
Of course this completely ignores the amount of potential wealth that could be contained within the BitCoin economy. A country’s currency is usually a reflection of the health of its underlying economy and BitCoin is no exception to this but we don’t have other metrics like GDP in which to get a good idea for how much wealth is backing it. Transactions volumes, exchange rates and total coins in circulation are only rough metrics and we’ve seen in the past how these things aren’t great indicators for the health of BitCoin.
Realistically the best exchange rate for BitCoins will be the one that it ultimately settles on once transaction volumes ramp up again and the investor market segment starts to become more and more irrelevant. Whether this is above or below the current rate is really anyone’s guess however we should still abstain from saying that the rising price of a BitCoin is a sign of market health as it’s simply not. Whilst the price rise is no where near as rapid as it was last year it’s still light years ahead of any other currency on the planet and as history has shown that kind of growth just isn’t sustainable. The next 6 months will be very telling for the BitCoin economy as we’ll see if this growth levels out into a new stable equilibrium or if it’s just the beginning of another speculative bubble.
What do you mean that to keep “real purchasing power the same, the exchange rate should go up by that [13%] rate”?
Assuming the dollar’s value didn’t change, then the exchange rate should still be $5 for Bitcoin to have the same purchasing power.
Were you trying to say something like how the total market value had risen, or ???
The mining of new BitCoins is akin to printing new currency which is typically an inflationary measure (I.E. real purchasing power of each dollar decreases). You’re right in saying that if the exchange rate doesn’t change at all in response to that then the purchasing power stays the same, however typically the minting of additional currency means that it should be less valuable as there’s more dollars representing the same amount of value.
Looking over it more closely I wasn’t thinking about that point very clearly and realistically the introduction of more currency should be deflationary if the real value of the BitCoin is to remain steady. It’d probably be more accurate to say that the new currency was deflated by the percentage of new coins introduced and then adjusting for real world inflation over the same period (which would still be an overall decrease).
I think I need to talk to a proper economist about this.