Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Surprisingly, Tail Emission Is Not Inflationary

From: Peter Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2022 11:13:44 -0400

On Sat, Jul 09, 2022 at 04:57:57PM +0200, John Tromp via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > New blog post:
> > https://petertodd.org/2022/surprisingly-tail-emission-is-not-inflationary
> 
> A Tail Emission is best described as disinflationary; the yearly
> supply inflation steadily decreases toward zero.

_Apparently_ inflation. True monetary inflation includes lost coins - both
intentionally and accidentally lost. It's quite possible that even with tail
emission Monero is currently a monetarily deflationary coin, as the lost coin
rate might be higher than the 0.8% apparent tail emission rate.

We just don't know. Doubly so in the case of monero where its privacy features
hide coin activity.

> > If an existing coin decides to implement tail emission as a means to fund security, choosing an appropriate emission rate is simple: decide on the maximum amount of inflation you are willing to have in the worst case, and set the tail emission accordingly.
> 
> Any coin without a premine starts with infinite inflation. Bitcoin in
> its first 4 years had yearly inflation rates of inf, 100%, 50%, and
> 33%. So deciding on a maximum amount of inflation is deciding on a
> premine.

Hence why I specified an *existing* coin.

> While in the long term, a capped supply doesn't meaningfully differ
> from un uncapped supply [1], the 21M limit is central to Bitcoin's
> identity, and removing this limit results in something that can no
> longer be called Bitcoin.

Personally I think basing your identity on a technical point that isn't even
correct is stupid. And I suspect than when push comes to shove, if in ~10 years
or whatever Bitcoin turns out to be unstable without a reward, the market as a
whole will be happy to redefine Bitcoin to remove the 21M limit. Whether or not
it can do that fast enough to avoid Bitcoin dying first is an open question.

-- 
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org