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<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">20 мая 2026 г., 00:36 От woody@pch.net:<br></div><blockquote class="tutanota_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid #93A3B8; padding-left: 10px; margin-left: 5px;"><div dir="auto"><br></div><blockquote><div dir="auto">On May 19, 2026, at 20:40, Ron Garret <ron@flownet.com> wrote:<br></div><div dir="auto">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<br></div></blockquote><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">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. 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.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Anyway, yes, it does seem like the maturation of cryptocurrencies into actual usable currencies requires this evolutionary step.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"> -Bill<br></div></blockquote><div dir="auto">Dear Bill<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">No argument from me, and I think you put your finger on the real crux. If you want a crypto that works as a stable usable currency, that is the step, and the buy-back is exactly where it gets hard. Regular folks won’t hold a reserve or do the necessary when the currency falls out of favor, so something that stable ends up run by a government or some accountable institution with a balance sheet. I agree.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The one place I’d put it differently is that this is an argument about becoming a currency, not an argument that every chain has to take that step. There are two different jobs here. One is being a stable unit of account, which needs the accountable issuer with a reserve that you describe. The other is being a neutral settlement and ordering layer, which can’t be that issuer and shouldn’t pretend to be. Montana picks the second one on purpose.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">And those two look like complements to me, not the same thing growing a treasury. A neutral, fee-free, post-quantum rail is actually a decent substrate for the currency you’re describing. A government could issue a demand-responsive currency as an instrument on top, hold its own reserve, run its own buy-back, and use the chain only for ordering and settlement. So I don’t see Montana turning into that currency. I see it as the rail that kind of currency could run on.<br></div><div dir="auto">So we agree on where usable currency has to go. I’d just put it one layer up from the protocol, not inside it.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">- Alejandro<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div> </body>
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