[Cryptography] Montana: A Post-Quantum Blockchain with Time as Scarcity

[Ron Garret]

> On May 19, 2026, at 2:36 PM, Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:
> 
>> On May 19, 2026, at 20:40, Ron Garret <ron at flownet.com> wrote:
>> This is the fundamental problem with all extant cryptocurrencies: they all control the money supply algorithmically.  But money is a commodity like any other, except that to serve its intended function as a medium of exchange it has to have a stable price relative to some actual goods or services.  The only way to accomplish that is to control the money supply in such a way that it can respond to actual demand, which is to say, to actual economic activity.  But there is no extant crypto currency with a mechanism for this.  They all control the money supply algorithmically, which inevitably leads to disconnects between supply and economic activity
> 
> I always thought a rational cryptocurrency would utilize mandatory recording of transactions to a blockchain to determine how much demand there was for new currency relative to the existing amount of currency in circulation, and mint additional currency as-needed to ensure that the currency supply stayed stable relative to demand, and inflation remained a predictable constant.

Implementing this is not as easy as you imagine.  Demand *precedes* transactions, it does not follow them.  If you try to adjust the supply based on transaction volume you will have a feedback loop with a delay, which is a recipe for instability.

This is an *inherent* part of the problem.  The ultimate driving forces of an economy are ultimately humans making decisions to buy things or not (or to produce things or not).  By the time a transaction happens, the decision that drove it -- and the macroeconomic conditions that drove the decision -- are usually far in the past.

> Of course, that also requires buy-back in the event that a currency declines in popularity, which means it needs to be an actual governmental currency, since just-regular-folks are unlikely to maintain a reserve for buy-backs, or to do the necessary, as it were.

Yep, that too.  And now you're essentially back to a fiat currency.

> Anyway, yes, it does seem like the maturation of cryptocurrencies into actual usable currencies requires this evolutionary step.

Yes, exactly.  Money is a very mature technology.  It goes back thousands of years, and modern fractional reserve banking goes back hundreds.  There are reasons why things are done the way they are.  It's not just a shadowy cabal smoking cigars in a back room wearing top hats and monocles plotting how to take over the world.  This is a lesson that crypto bros are destined to learn the hard way, and with a lot of collateral damage.

rg