isn't the real problem with bitcoin becoming a global currency an issue of how to best manage the potential exponential growth in size of the blockchain? 

i know this is cypherpunks but please explain like i'm five...

regards,

javier


On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Andy Isaacson <adi@hexapodia.org> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 07:04:51PM -0500, David Vorick wrote:
> Your problem is if bitcoin becomes a world economy. That means bitcoins
> usage grows by something like 2 orders of magnitude. Except that bitcoins
> are already halfway mined, which means that the circulation will not keep
> up. That is what drives the price up.
>
> If you want a currency that will scale with it's global usage (IE when the
> market cap hits $21 trillion, there are 21 trillion in circulation), you
> need some mechanism that knows how to equate 1 bitcoin to 1 dollar, that
> way more bitcoins can be printed as the market cap goes up.

Fractional bitcoins work just fine (down to 1/100,000,000, per
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi ).  If BTC goes to 100,000 USD we'll
just start pricing things in "thous" or "mils" or something similar.

In other words, there are already 12 quadrillion Satoshis in
circulation, plenty to absorb any further deflation.

-andy