This is one of the things about bitcoin nobody has ever explained to me adequately. Governments use monetary policy & other economic tools to regulate the economy. Assuming we're all Keynsians here, this is a pretty important feature that govts will not give up, so how is Bitcoin ever supposed to supplant fiat currency?
I'd disagree. What Bitcoin fans want is "digital gold", not the gold standard.
The gold standard is a system where paper currency is backed by a guarantee that it is redeemable for a given amount of gold. Of course the govt can rescind this promise at any time.
What Bitcoin fans want is something more akin to gold coins, where the value of the currency is independent of any state.
Fair enough, but effectively it has the same economical implications as the gold standard, except maybe made stronger by the fact that the government can't do anything at all to change the way it works, doesn't it?
I think the pro and cons of the gold standard (as listed by Wikipedia) seem to apply fairly well to the Bitcoin economy.
The idea of Bitcoin replacing fiat is a vision, not a plan.
People assume, or just like to believe, that as Bitcoin adoption grows, the advantages of Bitcoin will far surpass fiat and people will gradually start moving to it as a de facto currency. This will/would be an organic process, likely to last a few decades at least.
