Stop Calling Bitcoin Deflationary. by Conner Brown The ...

Bitcoin will cause the world to go in a deflation, because if we use the coin to buy goods, the cost of goods will keep on decreasing. 1mBtc will buy a starbucks cofee today , but as the value of BTC increases next year it will be able to buy a cell phone. the exact opposite of how fiat works

If my back of the envelope calculations are correct, $900,000 worth of BTCs are being pumped into the market every day ([(24hrs)(60min)]/(10min))(25BTC)*$250 = $900000
So I will agree my understanding of economics is no more than that of a dilettante, but isn't this no different then when a government prints of money? As in shouldn't this cause inflation and subsequent devaluation of the currency? If there's more of something then it becomes less valuable (right?)
Does this mean an extra million dollars are coming from outside investors every day? Or is the simple explanation that the price doesn't take into account the growing supply, and bitcoin buyers are willing to pay what they're willing to pay regardless (I suppose the answer to why this is would demand an entire philosophical discussion on why we appraise things as having the value that we do - I guess when you need party favors for the upcoming weekend, and BTCs are the only way to get them, then you don't take the time to perform at fundamental price analysis to see if the instrument you are buying is overvalued..)

It manages to increase in price with more created, why? Wouldn't more bitcoins mean less value per bitcoin?

Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington, who has who pioneered the economic study of virtual worlds, doubts that Bitcoins will ever become a mainstream currency, however.
Castronova's scepticism stems from the way that Bitcoin is structured as a currency with a fixed size. "It just isn't very fun. We've learned from game currencies that people like a little inflation in their economies. But Bitcoin is built to deflate. And we've just seen, culturally, people don't like deflation."
Bitcoins, unlike the cash you have in your pocket, are finite. There are currently 10.8m Bitcoins in the system, and this will cap out at 21m coins by the year 2140, according to market research firm ConvergEx. Limiting supply has been a major plus for Bitcoins, and a major reason why prices have gone up.
Excerpts taken from The Guardian
If you want to find the original article type "Bitcoin: more than just the currency of digital vice" into Google and you will find it.

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Libertarians: The fed inflates money, the Fed is evil. Fed: Ok, how about we allow for unforeseen events that cause deflation. Libertarians: The fed deflates money, the fed is evil.
You guys are idiots. You are such conspiracy dumbs.
'''
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Author: junseth

It is true that deflation has traditionally been associated with economic problems, but there is no reason to think that this will be a problem for Bitcoin. Right now in the United States, salaries, loan payments, rents , ect.. are priced in U.S. dollars. As a result, if the value of the dollar rises unexpectedly, can cause severe economic distortions. Unable to cut wages, trouble making payrolls. Unable to renegotiate their debts, homeowners have trouble making paying their mortgage payments. The result is a recession.
Hardly anyone uses Bitcoin as a unit of account. You'd be insane to sign a contract promising to repay a loan of 100 BTC in 10 years or to take a job where your salary was priced in bitcoins. Even the Bitcoin Orrganization, which pays its employees in bitcoins, still sets its employees' salaries in dollars, converting employees' salaries into the corresponding number of bitcoins on each payday. As a result, volatility in the value of bitcoins don't cause economic disruptions that fluctuations in the value of traditional currencies do.

With Bitcoin getting more attention, there has been more spreading of the myth that any fall in prices is "deflation" and thus the cause of depressions and low economic growth.
What you must be absolutely clear to distinguish are: monetary deflation and falling prices, sometimes called "price deflation". Most economists now use the word deflation simply as a synonym for falling prices; this however tends to be very misleading, since falling prices have no necessary connection to depressions. The original meanings of the words inflation and deflation were, respectively, an increase or a decrease in the supply of money; I will follow this usage.
Thus, it is vital to remember that, in the monetary sense, Bitcoin is not a deflationary currency. Nor is it inflationary (after its initial start-up period). It is invariable. That is, its supply is constant. (Sure, there may be a few coins lost here and there, but this is not significant.)
Price is essentially a relation of demand (money spent to buy goods) over supply (the quantity of goods sold). It is just a fraction: D/S. Like any fraction there are two possible ways that prices can change: a change in the numerator (more or less money spent) or a change in the denominator (more or fewer goods sold).
Prices can fall in two basic ways: either less money is spent, or more goods are sold. In a depression, prices fall because of the first reason: less money is spent. This can happen either because less money exists, or because the same money is not spent as often.
I am not going to elaborate this point (look elsewhere for a thorough explanation), but what precipitates a depression is that the quantity of money is artificially expanded, and the money that exists is spent more quickly because of "easy credit" policies. When these policies stop, spending slows down, causing banks to fail, which causes checkbook money actually to go out of existence. This causes spending to decrease even further, causing prices to crash and people to go bankrupt because they cannot pay back loans for a fixed sum of money.
The destruction of (bank created) money seen in a depression is real "deflation".
In a theoretical Bitcoin economy, there is no "monetary policy" (i.e. government intervention with the money supply). Or, to put the point a different way, there is an inherent policy of laissez-faire. Therefore, there is no tendency toward an artificial expansion of money and credit, and thus no ability for monetary deflation to occur.
The only possible source of falling prices in a Bitcoin economy would be from an increased number of goods sold: i.e. from increased production. This causes prices to fall. But wages stay the same, causing real wages (the goods you can actually buy) to increase. The only way someone will tend to earn a lower monetary wage (i.e. the same real wage) is if he does not keep up his own production to match the average economy-wide increase in production. Even though the money is more valuable, it is no more difficult for the average person to earn the same amount of money as he used to earn, since the increase in average productivity will necessarily cause the average person to be more productive.
Therefore, when you take out a loan of 1000 BTC and go to pay back 1100 BTC, it is no more difficult to earn back the principal that it was when you borrowed it. This is true even if 1000 BTC a few years later buys many more goods than it used to buy. The only difficulty lies in earning the interest, which is to be expected.
There is also no tendency to undermine savings and investment. In a Bitcoin economy, people would likely tend to keep more cash on hand, since it would be more valuable to hold and "easy credit" would not be available. But there would be no tendency to keep hoarding up more and more cash on hand (which is harmful). Bitcoin kept as cash on hand would, in a growing economy, gain value over time, true. But Bitcoin lent out to other people would gain even more on top of that. So everyone would rather loan out the larger portion of his savings, apart from the money needed for day-to-day expenses and for emergencies.
The average business, like the average worker, would find it no more difficult to keep earning the same amount of profit each year, even though that profit buys more goods. (Because to the very extent that money increases in value each year, the average business would find itself able to earn that money.) Thus, it would pay that business to take out a loan for 1000 BTC in exchange for 5% interest if it thought that it could make a 10% Bitcoin profit. This is true even if the real profit in terms of goods is 20% and the real interest 10%. The only thing that would be removed is the systematic tendency, in an inflationary currency, for profits to be overstated, since dollars earned at the end of the year are worth less than dollars spent at the beginning of the year.
In no respect would a Bitcoin economy have any tendency toward actual deflation (destruction of money) or toward economic stagnation.

Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington, who has who pioneered the economic study of virtual worlds, doubts that Bitcoins will ever become a mainstream currency, however.
Castronova's scepticism stems from the way that Bitcoin is structured as a currency with a fixed size. "It just isn't very fun. We've learned from game currencies that people like a little inflation in their economies. But Bitcoin is built to deflate. And we've just seen, culturally, people don't like deflation."
Bitcoins, unlike the cash you have in your pocket, are finite. There are currently 10.8m Bitcoins in the system, and this will cap out at 21m coins by the year 2140, according to market research firm ConvergEx. Limiting supply has been a major plus for Bitcoins, and a major reason why prices have gone up.
Excerpts taken from The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/ma04/bitcoin-currency-of-vice

Disclaimer: I'm not a certified financial advisor. You should not take this as an financial advice. Please make your own due diligence by doing your own research before making any investment.
History has shown in any major economic crisis, there are 5 stages that will happen leading to the apocalypse (Hyperinflation).
Stage 1 - Steady inflation
Stage 2 - Deep Deflation
Stage 3 - Higher Inflation
Stage 4 - Deeper Deflation
Stage 5 - Hyperinflation
So, we have completed stage 1 & 2 this year and we are currently at stage 3, and slowly moving to stage 4
So, my prediction is we could go to stage 4 (deeper deflation) if the government didn't release the second stimulus package which is against the Federal reserve target of 2% inflation. But, from what I'm reading on the news the second stimulus package might be released by the end of September if agreed by the government. This will drive Bitcoin price higher and cause us to be in stage 3 for a little bit longer until end of this year.
Start the year 2021, we might face the inevitable stage 4 (the deeper deflation), BTC price will drop hard and worse than this week because the real economy isn't going back to normal, no jobs, no food and no shelter. People will start to liquidate BTC assets to support their daily life needs and they will cut their spending because free money from government has stopped
And by 2021, The deflation had become so bad the government had to make the old money printer once again go brrrrrrrrr to stop the economy from collapsing. And that my fellow Hodlers, will be the start of the Stage 5 (Hyperinflation).
When hyperinflation happen, the one who hold real money Gold, silver and Bitcoin and hard producing assets will be safe. The one who don't will be wiped out.
Are ready to ride this roller coaster? Are you ready to be launched to the Andromeda galaxy?

OKAY. So demand has been reduced dramatically around the world, our $21 trillion GDP has basically been paused for 2 months, so to keep it afloat (rough math), the government had to add $3.5 trillion to keep the economy running somewhat smoothly. That's a lot of printing, you idiots probably expect inflation. Wrong, step away from the US and look at what other countries are doing, the ECB (European Central Bank) and BOJ (Bank of Japan) are having to print trillions of dollars worth of EURO and YEN to keep their economies going, along with every other country getting pounded. Not only that, but since the US dollar makes up 70% of global transactions, in liquidity terms, trillions worth of euro and yen is MUCH MUCH more than any amount Jpow feels like printing, there's no way our printing could offset what the rest of the world is doing, so inflation isn't coming. If you want proof, just look at the euro/usd (going lower) and literally ANY emerging market currency is getting absolutely clapped vs the dollar.

Furthermore, not only is US corporate debt at an all time high, but emerging markets, the eurozone, and asia has borrowed more dollars than ever before at any point in history, basically everyone around the world's debt is denominated in US DOLLARS. So what's about to happen? It's already happening, demand for US dollars is going up because everyone around the world wants to borrow more to offset cash flow concerns and pay off existing debts, which will cause the dollar to increase in value. What happens when the whole world has debt in dollars and the dollar goes up in value? DEBT BECOMES MORE EXPENSIVE. This is DEFLATION, and in particular and even more terrifying DEBT DEFLATION, a phrase that would make Jpow absolutely shit himself (and he knows its coming). This has already started before the whole beervirus nonsense, look at Venezuela and Zimbabwe, they had too much dollar debt, no one wanted to lend to them anymore and whoops, their currency is worthless now. It's going to be like a game of musical chairs for people trying to get access to dollars, starting with emerging markets and eventually moving into the more developed economies. The result: massive corporate bankruptcies, countries defaulting on debt (devaluing their currencies) and eventually a deleveraging of massive proportions. This WILL occur and no amount of printing can stop it, it's already too far gone.

It doesn't matter what the stock market does, other markets around the world will be fucked, honestly it might cause the market to go up because of all the money fleeing other countries trying to find a safe place to live. Here are the plays assholes. TLT will go up because no matter what Jpow says, he doesn't control the fed funds rate, the market does, and US treasury bond yields have already priced in bonds going negative. CPI shows that we may see up to -3% inflation (3% deflation), meaning at .25% fed funds rate, the REAL rate is 3.25%, that is the worst thing possible during a deleveraging because it makes it harder to stimulate the economy, the fed has no choice, rates MUST go lower. Rates go lower, bond prices go up, TLT 12/18 $205c. Remember how I said scared foreign money will want to find a nice safe place to go when we go into the biggest debt crisis the world has seen in over 300 years? GLD 12/18 $240c. Finally, the dollar will rise in value as well so UUP 12/18 $28c.

As far the actual market, we hit a high of SPY 339.08 in February, fell to a low of 218.26 by mid March, and have since then retraced EXACTLY to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at 290, and started to bounce lower from there. I'm no technical analyst, but I do know history. During the greatest crashes in stock market history, 1929, 2001, 2008, the Nikkei in 1989 (Japan) this exact same thing happened, market got scared and fell to lows, then smoked that good hopium for a few weeks or month to retrace between 50% and 61.8% back to previews highs, then absolutely fell off a cliff. If you don't believe me, go look at the charts. Now, I'm personally not going to be betting on the US market falling because of the fact that its just straight up not reflecting reality and there are much better ways to trade on what's occurring (see trades above), but I PROMISE, that we will not be seeing new highs at any point any time soon.

TLDR; The world is going to shit due to the dollars over-dominance of the world market, we will soon see the worst deleveraging in human history, and may very well have to come up with a new fiat money system (probably not bitcoin, but it wouldn't hurt to have some). TLT 12/18 $205c, GLD 12/18 $240c, and UUP 12/18 $28c. If you wanna be an autist and buy weeklys, I can't help you, but I basically just gave you the next big short, so you're welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't say what price to buy at for a reason, timing is extremely important for trades like this, so don't FOMO in and overpay, you will get clapped.

(be gentle, it's my first RI attempt, :P; I hope I can make justice to the subject, this is my layman understanding of many macro subjects which may be flawed...I hope you can illuminate me if I have fallen short of a good RI)
Introduction
So, today a heterodox leaning Argentinian newspaper, Ambito Financiero, published an article criticizing monetarism called "Six monetarist errors: why emission won't feed inflation". I find it doesn't properly address monetarism, confuses it with other "economic schools" for whatever the term is worth today and it may be misleading, so I was inspired to write a refutation and share it with all of you.
In some ways criticizing monetarism is more of a historical discussion given the mainstream has changed since then. Stuff like New Keynesian models are the bleeding edge, not Milton Friedman style monetarism. It's more of a symptom that Argentinian political culture is kind of stuck in the 70s on economics that this things keep being discussed.
Before getting to the meat of the argument, it's good to have in mind some common definitions about money supply measures (specifically, MB, M1 and M2). These definitions apply to US but one can find analogous stuff for other countries.
Argentina, for the lack of access to credit given its economic mismanagement and a government income decrease because of the recession, is monetizing deficits way more than before (like half of the budget, apparently, it's money financed) yet we have seen some disinflation (worth mentioning there are widespread price freezes since a few months ago). The author reasons that monetary phenomena cannot explain inflation properly and that other explanations are needed and condemns monetarism. Here are the six points he makes:
1.Is it a mechanical rule?

This way, we can ask by symmetry: if a certainty exists that when emission increases, inflation increases, the reverse should happen when emission becomes negative, obtaining negative inflation. Nonetheless, we know this happens: prices have an easier time increasing and a lot of rigidity decreasing. So the identity between emission and inflation is not like that, deflation almost never exists and the price movement rhythm cannot be controlled remotely only with money quantity. There is no mechanical relationship between one thing and the other.

First, the low hanging fruit: deflation is not that uncommon, for those of you that live in US and Europe it should be obvious given the difficulties central banks had to achieve their targets, but even Argentina has seen deflation during its depression 20 years ago.
Second, we have to be careful with what we mean by emission. A statement of quantity theory of money (extracted from "Money Growth and Inflation: How Long is the Long-Run?") would say:

Inflation occurs when the average level of prices increases. Individual price increases in and of themselves do not equal inflation, but an overall pattern of price increases does. The price level observed in the economy is that which leads the quantity of money supplied to equal the quantity of money demanded. The quantity of money supplied is largely controlled by the [central bank]. When the supply of money increases or decreases, the price level must adjust to equate the quantity of money demanded throughout the economy with the quantity of money supplied. The quantity of money demanded depends not only on the price level but also on the level of real income, as measured by real gross domestic product (GDP), and a variety of other factors including the level of interest rates and technological advances such as the invention of automated teller machines. Money demand is widely thought to increase roughly proportionally with the price level and with real income. That is, if prices go up by 10 percent, or if real income increases by 10 percent, empirical evidence suggests people want to hold 10 percent more money. When the money supply grows faster than the money demand associated with rising real incomes and other factors, the price level must rise to equate supply and demand. That is, inflation occurs. This situation is often referred to as too many dollars chasing too few goods. Note that this theory does not predict that any money-supply growth will lead to inflation—only that part of money supply growth that exceeds the increase in money demand associated with rising real GDP (holding the other factors constant).

So it's not mere emission, but money supply growing faster than money demand which we should consider. So negative emission is not necessary condition for deflation in this theory.
It's worth mentioning that the relationship with prices is observed for a broad measure of money (M2) and after a lag. From the same source of this excerpt one can observe in Fig. 3a the correlation between inflation and money growth for US becomes stronger the longer data is averaged. Price rigidities don't have to change this long term relationship per se.
But what about causality and Argentina? This neat paper shows regressions in two historical periods: 1976-1989 and 1991-2001. The same relationship between M2 and inflation is observed, stronger in the first, highly inflationary period and weaker in the second, more stable, period. The regressions a 1-1 relationship in the high inflation period but deviates a bit in the low inflation period (yet the relationship is still there). Granger causality, as interpreted in the paper, shows prices caused money growth in the high inflation period (arguably because spending was monetized) while the reverse was true for the more stable period.
So one can argue that there is a mechanical relationship, albeit one that is more complicated than simple QTOM theory. The relationship is complicated too for low inflation economies, it gets more relevant the higher inflation is.
Another point the author makes is that liquidity trap is often ignored. I'll ignore the fact that you need specific conditions for the liquidity trap to be relevant to Argentina and address the point. Worth noting that while market monetarists (not exactly old fashioned monetarists) prefer alternative explanations for monetary policy with very low interest rates, this phenomena has a good monetary basis, as explained by Krugman in his famous japanese liquidity trap paper and his NYT blog (See this and this for some relevant articles). The simplified version is that while inflation may follow M2 growth with all the qualifiers needed, central banks may find difficulties targeting inflation when interest rates are low and agents are used to credible inflation targets. Central banks can change MB, not M2 and in normal times is good enough, but at those times M2 is out of control and "credibly irresponsible" policies are needed to return to normal (a more detailed explanation can be found in that paper I just linked, go for it if you are still curious).
It's not like monetary policy is not good, it's that central banks have to do very unconventional stuff to achieve in a low interest rate environment. It's still an open problem but given symmetric inflation targeting policies are becoming more popular I'm optimistic.
2 - Has inflation one or many causes?

In Argentina we know that the main determinant of inflation is dollar price increases. On that, economic concentration of key markets, utility price adjustments, fuel prices, distributive struggles, external commodity values, expectatives, productive disequilibrium, world interest rates, the economic cycle, stationality and external sector restrictions act on it too.
Let's see a simple example: during Macri's government since mid 2017 to 2019 emission was practically null, but when in 2018 the dollar value doubled, inflation doubled too (it went from 24% to 48% in 2018) and it went up again a year later. We see here that the empirical validity of monetarist theory was absent.

For the first paragraph, one could try to run econometric tests for all those variables, at least from my layman perspective. But given that it doesn't pass the smell test (has any country used that in its favor ignoring monetary policy? Also, I have shown there is at least some evidence for the money-price relationship before), I'll try to address what happened in Macri's government and if monetarism (or at least some reasonable extension of it) cannot account for it.
For a complete description of macroeconomic policy on that period, Sturzenegger account is a good one (even if a bit unreliable given he was the central banker for that government and he is considered to have been a failure). The short version is that central banks uses bonds to manage monetary policy and absorb money; given the history of defaults for the country, the Argentinian Central Bank (BCRA) uses its own peso denominated bonds instead of using treasury bonds. At that time period, the BCRA still financed the treasury but the amount got reduced. Also, it emitted pesos to buy dollar reserves, then sterilized them, maybe risking credibility further.
Near the end of 2017 it was evident the government had limited appetite for budget cuts, it had kind of abandoned its inflation target regime and the classic problem of fiscal dominance emerged, as it's shown in the classic "Unpleasant monetarist arithmetic" paper by Wallace and Sargent. Monetary policy gets less effective when the real value of bonds falls, and raising interest rates may be counterproductive in that environment. Rational expectations are needed to complement QTOM.
So, given that Argentina promised to go nowhere with reform, it was expected that money financing would increase at some point in the future and BCRA bonds were dumped in 2018 and 2019 as their value was perceived to have decreased, and so peso demand decreased. It's not that the dollar value increased and inflation followed, but instead that peso demand fell suddenly!
The IMF deal asked for MB growth to be null or almost null but that doesn't say a lot about M2 (which it's the relevant variable here). Without credible policies, the peso demand keeps falling because bonds are dumped even more (see 2019 for a hilariously brutal example of that).
It's not emission per se, but rather that it doesn't adjust properly to peso demand (which is falling). That doesn't mean increasing interest rates is enough to achieve it, following Wallace and Sargent model.
This is less a strict proof that a monetary phenomenon is involved and more stating that the author hasn't shown any problem with that, there are reasonable models for this situation. It doesn't look like an clear empirical failure to me yet.
3 - Of what we are talking about when we talk about emission?
The author mentions many money measures (M0, M1, M2) but it doesn't address it meaningfully as I tried to do above. It feels more like a rhetorical device because there is no point here except "this stuff exists".
Also, it's worth pointing that there are actual criticisms to make to Friedman on those grounds. He failed to forecast US inflation at some points when he switched to M1 instead of using M2, although he later reverted that. Monetarism kind of "failed" there (it also "failed" in the sense that modern central banks don't use money, but instead interest rates as their main tool; "failed" because despite being outdated, it was influential to modern central banking). This is often brought to this kind of discussions like if economics hasn't moved beyond that. For an account of Friedman thoughts on monetary policies and his failures, see this.
4 - Why do many countries print and inflation doesn't increase there?
There is a mention about the japanese situation in the 90s (the liquidity trap) which I have addressed.
The author mentions that many countries "printed" like crazy during the pandemic, and he says:

Monetarism apologists answer, when confronted with those grave empirical problems that happen in "serious countries", that the population "trusts" their monetary authorities, even increasing the money demand in those place despite the emission. Curious, though, it's an appeal to "trust" implying that the relationship between emission and inflation is not objective, but subjective and cultural: an appreciation that abandons mechanicism and the basic certainty of monetarism, because evaluations and diagnostics, many times ideologic, contextual or historical intervene..

That's just a restatement of applying rational expectations to central bank operations. I don't see a problem with that. Rational expectations is not magic, it's an assessment of future earnings by economic actors. Humans may not 100% rational but central banking somehow works on many countries. You cannot just say that people are ideologues and let it at that. What's your model?
Worth noting the author shills for bitcoin a bit in this section, for more cringe.
5 - Are we talking of a physical science or a social science?
Again, a vague mention of rational expectations ("populists and pro market politicians could do the same policies with different results because of how agents respond ideologically and expectatives") without handling the subject meaningfully. It criticizes universal macroeconomic rules that apply everywhere (this is often used to dismiss evidence from other countries uncritically more than as a meaningful point).
6 - How limits work?

The last question to monetarism allows to recognize it something: effectively we can think on a type of vinculation between emission and inflation in extreme conditions. That means, with no monetary rule, no government has the need of taxes but instead can emit and spend all it needs without consequence. We know it's not like that: no government can print infinitely without undesirable effects.

Ok, good disclaimer, but given what he wrote before, what's the mechanism which causes money printing to be inflationary at some point? It was rejected before but now it seems that it exists. What was even the point of the article?

Now, the problem is thinking monetarism on its extremes: without emission we have inflation sometimes, on others we have no inflation with emission, we know that if we have negative emission that doesn't guarantees us negative inflation, but that if emission is radically uncontrolled there will economic effects.

As I wrote above, that's not what monetarism (even on it's simpler form) says, nor a consequence of it. You can see some deviations in low inflation environment but it's not really Argentina's current situation.

Let's add other problems: the elastic question between money and prices is not evident. Neither is time lags in which can work or be neutral. So the question is the limit cases for monetarism which has some reason but some difficulty in explaining them: by which and it what moments rules work and in which it doesn't.

I find the time lag thing to be a red herring. You can observe empirically and not having a proper short/middle run model doesn't invalidate QTOM in the long run. While it may be that increasing interest rates or freezing MB is not effective, that's less a problem of the theory and more a problem of policy implementation.
Conclusion:
I find that the article doesn't truly get monetarism to begin with (see the points it makes about emission and money demand), neither how it's implemented in practice, nor seems to be aware of more modern theories that, while put money on the background, don't necessarily invalidate it (rational expectation ideas, and eventually New Keynesian stuff which addresses stuff like liquidity traps properly).
There are proper criticisms to be made to Friedman old ideas but he still was a relevant man in his time and the economic community has moved on to new, better theories that have some debt to it. I feel most economic discussion about monetarism in Argentina is a strawman of mainstream economics or an attack on Austrians more than genuine points ("monetarism" is used as a shorthand for those who think inflation is a monetary phenomenon more than referring to Friedman and his disciples per se).

If deflation causes money to increase in value, everyone hoards and no one spends. Why is that good?
My thesis (read: brain farts from a noob economist)::
Since the very beginning of bitcoin, people have been incentivized to hold. This, together with scarcity and user-base increase only appreciates this asset, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, if you were to consider imagining an economy running on bitcoin, people will always wait for the next year to make purchases as their purchasing power appreciates rather than depreciates. As the monetary network’s liquidity slows down, money does not reach the pockets of innovation pockets which have large impact.
I think bitcoin holders mentally masturbate about getting rich, while at the same time promoting a monetary policy that may actually disincentivize wealth generation through innovation that is fueled by our market participation.

Hey everyone,
I am really new to all of this. I am trying to Diversify my money/investments, cuz yanno I need tendies for the Apocalypse. My idea right now is new saving to go to 33% cash in case of deflation, 33% in Gold/Bitcoin incase of crazy Inflation and 33% in index funds cause eventually things will get back to normal and stonks will go up eventually.
So my Issue is I like the idea of crypto but the learning curve is really high. Trying to figure out Wallets/Exchanges/ fees etc. I am not a tech person and it is making my brain hurt. I don't want to get stuck in a situation where a exchange shuts down and steals ma moneh. So for someone who wants to get my feet wet and Hodl in case there is a rally. What should I get and where? I am thinking like putting in about a hundred a month for the foreseeable future. until I have at least a 1000$ to play with and then I can learn some more along the way once I have some skin in the game and am comfortable with the process.
Please not too much Jargin and ELI5. Thanks

﷽
The Federal Reserve and the United States government are pumping extreme amounts of money into the economy, already totaling over $484 billion. They are doing so because it already had a goal to inflate the United States Dollar (USD) so that the market can continue to all-time highs. It has always had this goal. They do not care how much inflation goes up by now as we are going into a depression with the potential to totally crash the US economy forever. They believe the only way to save the market from going to zero or negative values is to inflate it so much that it cannot possibly crash that low. Even if the market does not dip that low, inflation serves the interest of powerful people.
The impending crash of the stock market has ramifications for Bitcoin, as, though there is no direct ongoing-correlation between the two, major movements in traditional markets will necessarily affect Bitcoin. According to the Blockchain Center’s Cryptocurrency Correlation Tool, Bitcoin is not correlated with the stock market. However, when major market movements occur, they send ripples throughout the financial ecosystem which necessary affect even ordinarily uncorrelated assets.
Therefore, Bitcoin will reach X price on X date after crashing to a price of X by X date.

Stock Market Crash

The Federal Reserve has caused some serious consternation with their release of ridiculous amounts of money in an attempt to buoy the economy. At face value, it does not seem to have any rationale or logic behind it other than keeping the economy afloat long enough for individuals to profit financially and politically. However, there is an underlying basis to what is going on which is important to understand in order to profit financially.
All markets are functionally price probing systems. They constantly undergo a price-discovery process. In a fiat system, money is an illusory and a fundamentally synthetic instrument with no intrinsic value – similar to Bitcoin. The primary difference between Bitcoin is the underlying technology which provides a slew of benefits that fiat does not. Fiat, however, has an advantage in being able to have the support of powerful nation-states which can use their might to insure the currency’s prosperity.
Traditional stock markets are composed of indices (pl. of index). Indices are non-trading market instruments which are essentially summaries of business values which comprise them. They are continuously recalculated throughout a trading day, and sometimes reflected through tradable instruments such as Exchange Traded Funds or Futures. Indices are weighted by market capitalizations of various businesses.
Price theory essentially states that when a market fails to take out a new low in a given range, it will have an objective to take out the high. When a market fails to take out a new high, it has an objective to make a new low. This is why price-time charts go up and down, as it does this on a second-by-second, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, and even century-by-century basis. Therefore, market indices will always return to some type of bull market as, once a true low is formed, the market will have a price objective to take out a new high outside of its’ given range – which is an all-time high. Instruments can only functionally fall to zero, whereas they can grow infinitely.
So, why inflate the economy so much?
Deflation is disastrous for central banks and markets as it raises the possibility of producing an overall price objective of zero or negative values. Therefore, under a fractional reserve system with a fiat currency managed by a central bank – the goal of the central bank is to depreciate the currency. The dollar is manipulated constantly with the intention of depreciating its’ value.
Central banks have a goal of continued inflated fiat values. They tend to ordinarily contain it at less than ten percent (10%) per annum in order for the psyche of the general populace to slowly adjust price increases. As such, the markets are divorced from any other logic. Economic policy is the maintenance of human egos, not catering to fundamental analysis. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is well-known not to be a measure of actual growth or output. It is a measure of increase in dollars processed. Banks seek to produce raising numbers which make society feel like it is growing economically, making people optimistic. To do so, the currency is inflated, though inflation itself does not actually increase growth. When society is optimistic, it spends and engages in business – resulting in actual growth. It also encourages people to take on credit and debts, creating more fictional fiat.
Inflation is necessary for markets to continue to reach new heights, generating positive emotional responses from the populace, encouraging spending, encouraging debt intake, further inflating the currency, and increasing the sale of government bonds. The fiat system only survives by generating more imaginary money on a regular basis.
Bitcoin investors may profit from this by realizing that stock investors as a whole always stand to profit from the market so long as it is managed by a central bank and does not collapse entirely. If those elements are filled, it has an unending price objective to raise to new heights. It also allows us to realize that this response indicates that the higher-ups believe that the economy could crash in entirety, and it may be wise for investors to have multiple well-thought-out exit strategies.

Economic Analysis of Bitcoin

The reason why the Fed is so aggressively inflating the economy is due to fears that it will collapse forever or never rebound. As such, coupled with a global depression, a huge demand will appear for a reserve currency which is fundamentally different than the previous system. Bitcoin, though a currency or asset, is also a market. It also undergoes a constant price-probing process. Unlike traditional markets, Bitcoin has the exact opposite goal. Bitcoin seeks to appreciate in value and not depreciate. This has a quite different affect in that Bitcoin could potentially become worthless and have a price objective of zero.
Bitcoin was created in 2008 by a now famous mysterious figure known as Satoshi Nakamoto and its’ open source code was released in 2009. It was the first decentralized cryptocurrency to utilize a novel protocol known as the blockchain. Up to one megabyte of data may be sent with each transaction. It is decentralized, anonymous, transparent, easy to set-up, and provides myriad other benefits. Bitcoin is not backed up by anything other than its’ own technology.
Bitcoin is can never be expected to collapse as a framework, even were it to become worthless. The stock market has the potential to collapse in entirety, whereas, as long as the internet exists, Bitcoin will be a functional system with a self-authenticating framework. That capacity to persist regardless of the actual price of Bitcoin and the deflationary nature of Bitcoin means that it has something which fiat does not – inherent value.
Bitcoin is based on a distributed database known as the “blockchain.” Blockchains are essentially decentralized virtual ledger books, replete with pages known as “blocks.” Each page in a ledger is composed of paragraph entries, which are the actual transactions in the block.
Blockchains store information in the form of numerical transactions, which are just numbers. We can consider these numbers digital assets, such as Bitcoin. The data in a blockchain is immutable and recorded only by consensus-based algorithms. Bitcoin is cryptographic and all transactions are direct, without intermediary, peer-to-peer.
Bitcoin does not require trust in a central bank. It requires trust on the technology behind it, which is open-source and may be evaluated by anyone at any time. Furthermore, it is impossible to manipulate as doing so would require all of the nodes in the network to be hacked at once – unlike the stock market which is manipulated by the government and “Market Makers”. Bitcoin is also private in that, though the ledge is openly distributed, it is encrypted. Bitcoin’s blockchain has one of the greatest redundancy and information disaster recovery systems ever developed.
Bitcoin has a distributed governance model in that it is controlled by its’ users. There is no need to trust a payment processor or bank, or even to pay fees to such entities. There are also no third-party fees for transaction processing. As the ledge is immutable and transparent it is never possible to change it – the data on the blockchain is permanent. The system is not easily susceptible to attacks as it is widely distributed. Furthermore, as users of Bitcoin have their private keys assigned to their transactions, they are virtually impossible to fake. No lengthy verification, reconciliation, nor clearing process exists with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is based on a proof-of-work algorithm. Every transaction on the network has an associated mathetical “puzzle”. Computers known as miners compete to solve the complex cryptographic hash algorithm that comprises that puzzle. The solution is proof that the miner engaged in sufficient work. The puzzle is known as a nonce, a number used only once. There is only one major nonce at a time and it issues 12.5 Bitcoin. Once it is solved, the fact that the nonce has been solved is made public.
A block is mined on average of once every ten minutes. However, the blockchain checks every 2,016,000 minutes (approximately four years) if 201,600 blocks were mined. If it was faster, it increases difficulty by half, thereby deflating Bitcoin. If it was slower, it decreases, thereby inflating Bitcoin. It will continue to do this until zero Bitcoin are issued, projected at the year 2140. On the twelfth of May, 2020, the blockchain will halve the amount of Bitcoin issued when each nonce is guessed. When Bitcoin was first created, fifty were issued per block as a reward to miners. 6.25 BTC will be issued from that point on once each nonce is solved.
Unlike fiat, Bitcoin is a deflationary currency. As BTC becomes scarcer, demand for it will increase, also raising the price. In this, BTC is similar to gold. It is predictable in its’ output, unlike the USD, as it is based on a programmed supply. We can predict BTC’s deflation and inflation almost exactly, if not exactly. Only 21 million BTC will ever be produced, unless the entire network concedes to change the protocol – which is highly unlikely.
Some of the drawbacks to BTC include congestion. At peak congestion, it may take an entire day to process a Bitcoin transaction as only three to five transactions may be processed per second. Receiving priority on a payment may cost up to the equivalent of twenty dollars ($20). Bitcoin mining consumes enough energy in one day to power a single-family home for an entire week.

Trading or Investing?

The fundamental divide in trading revolves around the question of market structure. Many feel that the market operates totally randomly and its’ behavior cannot be predicted. For the purposes of this article, we will assume that the market has a structure, but that that structure is not perfect. That market structure naturally generates chart patterns as the market records prices in time. In order to determine when the stock market will crash, causing a major decline in BTC price, we will analyze an instrument, an exchange traded fund, which represents an index, as opposed to a particular stock. The price patterns of the various stocks in an index are effectively smoothed out. In doing so, a more technical picture arises. Perhaps the most popular of these is the SPDR S&P Standard and Poor 500 Exchange Traded Fund ($SPY).
In trading, little to no concern is given about value of underlying asset. We are concerned primarily about liquidity and trading ranges, which are the amount of value fluctuating on a short-term basis, as measured by volatility-implied trading ranges. Fundamental analysis plays a role, however markets often do not react to real-world factors in a logical fashion. Therefore, fundamental analysis is more appropriate for long-term investing.
The fundamental derivatives of a chart are time (x-axis) and price (y-axis). The primary technical indicator is price, as everything else is lagging in the past. Price represents current asking price and incorrectly implementing positions based on price is one of the biggest trading errors.
Markets and currencies ordinarily have noise, their tendency to back-and-fill, which must be filtered out for true pattern recognition. That noise does have a utility, however, in allowing traders second chances to enter favorable positions at slightly less favorable entry points. When you have any market with enough liquidity for historical data to record a pattern, then a structure can be divined. The market probes prices as part of an ongoing price-discovery process. Market technicians must sometimes look outside of the technical realm and use visual inspection to ascertain the relevance of certain patterns, using a qualitative eye that recognizes the underlying quantitative nature
Markets and instruments rise slower than they correct, however they rise much more than they fall. In the same vein, instruments can only fall to having no worth, whereas they could theoretically grow infinitely and have continued to grow over time. Money in a fiat system is illusory. It is a fundamentally synthetic instrument which has no intrinsic value. Hence, the recent seemingly illogical fluctuations in the market.
According to trade theory, the unending purpose of a market or instrument is to create and break price ranges according to the laws of supply and demand. We must determine when to trade based on each market inflection point as defined in price and in time as opposed to abandoning the trend (as the contrarian trading in this sub often does). Time and Price symmetry must be used to be in accordance with the trend. When coupled with a favorable risk to reward ratio, the ability to stay in the market for most of the defined time period, and adherence to risk management rules; the trader has a solid methodology for achieving considerable gains.
We will engage in a longer term market-oriented analysis to avoid any time-focused pressure. The Bitcoin market is open twenty-four-hours a day, so trading may be done when the individual is ready, without any pressing need to be constantly alert. Let alone, we can safely project months in advance with relatively high accuracy. Bitcoin is an asset which an individual can both trade and invest, however this article will be focused on trading due to the wide volatility in BTC prices over the short-term.

Technical Indicator Analysis of Bitcoin

Technical indicators are often considered self-fulfilling prophecies due to mass-market psychology gravitating towards certain common numbers yielded from them. They are also often discounted when it comes to BTC. That means a trader must be especially aware of these numbers as they can prognosticate market movements. Often, they are meaningless in the larger picture of things.

Volume – derived from the market itself, it is mostly irrelevant. The major problem with volume for stocks is that the US market open causes tremendous volume surges eradicating any intrinsic volume analysis. This does not occur with BTC, as it is open twenty-four-seven. At major highs and lows, the market is typically anemic. Most traders are not active at terminal discretes (peaks and troughs) because of levels of fear. Volume allows us confidence in time and price symmetry market inflection points, if we observe low volume at a foretold range of values. We can rationalize that an absolute discrete is usually only discovered and anticipated by very few traders. As the general market realizes it, a herd mentality will push the market in the direction favorable to defending it. Volume is also useful for swing trading, as chances for swing’s validity increases if an increase in volume is seen on and after the swing’s activation. Volume is steadily decreasing. Lows and highs are reached when volume is lower.

Therefore, due to the relatively high volume on the 12th of March, we can safely determine that a low for BTC was not reached.

VIX – Volatility Index, this technical indicator indicates level of fear by the amount of options-based “insurance” in portfolios. A low VIX environment, less than 20 for the S&P index, indicates a stable market with a possible uptrend. A high VIX, over 20, indicates a possible downtrend. VIX is essentially useless for BTC as BTC-based options do not exist. It allows us to predict the market low for $SPY, which will have an indirect impact on BTC in the short term, likely leading to the yearly low. However, it is equally important to see how VIX is changing over time, if it is decreasing or increasing, as that indicates increasing or decreasing fear. Low volatility allows high leverage without risk or rest. Occasionally, markets do rise with high VIX.

As VIX is unusually high, in the forties, we can be confident that a downtrend for the S&P 500 is imminent.

RSI (Relative Strength Index): The most important technical indicator, useful for determining highs and lows when time symmetry is not availing itself. Sometimes analysis of RSI can conflict in different time frames, easiest way to use it is when it is at extremes – either under 30 or over 70. Extremes can be used for filtering highs or lows based on time-and-price window calculations. Highly instructive as to major corrective clues and indicative of continued directional movement. Must determine if longer-term RSI values find support at same values as before. It is currently at 73.56.
Secondly, RSI may be used as a high or low filter, to observe the level that short-term RSI reaches in counter-trend corrections. Repetitions based on market movements based on RSI determine how long a trade should be held onto. Once a short term RSI reaches an extreme and stay there, the other RSI’s should gradually reach the same extremes. Once all RSI’s are at extreme highs, a trend confirmation should occur and RSI’s should drop to their midpoint.

Trend Definition Analysis of Bitcoin

Trend definition is highly powerful, cannot be understated. Knowledge of trend logic is enough to be a profitable trader, yet defining a trend is an arduous process. Multiple trends coexist across multiple time frames and across multiple market sectors. Like time structure, it makes the underlying price of the instrument irrelevant. Trend definitions cannot determine the validity of newly formed discretes. Trend becomes apparent when trades based in counter-trend inflection points continue to fail.
Downtrends are defined as an instrument making lower lows and lower highs that are recurrent, additive, qualified swing setups. Downtrends for all instruments are similar, except forex. They are fast and complete much quicker than uptrends. An average downtrend is 18 months, something which we will return to. An uptrend inception occurs when an instrument reaches a point where it fails to make a new low, then that low will be tested. After that, the instrument will either have a deep range retracement or it may take out the low slightly, resulting in a double-bottom. A swing must eventually form.
A simple way to roughly determine trend is to attempt to draw a line from three tops going upwards (uptrend) or a line from three bottoms going downwards (downtrend). It is not possible to correctly draw a downtrend line on the BTC chart, but it is possible to correctly draw an uptrend – indicating that the overall trend is downwards. The only mitigating factor is the impending stock market crash.

Time Symmetry Analysis of Bitcoin

Time is the movement from the past through the present into the future. It is a measurement in quantified intervals. In many ways, our perception of it is a human construct. It is more powerful than price as time may be utilized for a trade regardless of the market inflection point’s price. Were it possible to perfectly understand time, price would be totally irrelevant due to the predictive certainty time affords. Time structure is easier to learn than price, but much more difficult to apply with any accuracy. It is the hardest aspect of trading to learn, but also the most rewarding.
Humans do not have the ability to recognize every time window, however the ability to define market inflection points in terms of time is the single most powerful trading edge. Regardless, price should not be abandoned for time alone. Time structure analysis It is inherently flawed, as such the markets have a fail-safe, which is Price Structure. Even though Time is much more powerful, Price Structure should never be completely ignored. Time is the qualifier for Price and vice versa. Time can fail by tricking traders into counter-trend trading.
Time is a predestined trade quantifier, a filter to slow trades down, as it allows a trader to specifically focus on specific time windows and rest at others. It allows for quantitative measurements to reach deterministic values and is the primary qualifier for trends. Time structure should be utilized before price structure, and it is the primary trade criterion which requires support from price. We can see price structure on a chart, as areas of mathematical support or resistance, but we cannot see time structure.
Time may be used to tell us an exact point in the future where the market will inflect, after Price Theory has been fulfilled. In the present, price objectives based on price theory added to possible future times for market inflection points give us the exact time of market inflection points and price.
Time Structure is repetitions of time or inherent cycles of time, occurring in a methodical way to provide time windows which may be utilized for inflection points. They are not easily recognized and not easily defined by a price chart as measuring and observing time is very exact. Time structure is not a science, yet it does require precise measurements. Nothing is certain or definite. The critical question must be if a particular approach to time structure is currently lucrative or not.
We will measure it in intervals of 180 bars. Our goal is to determine time windows, when the market will react and when we should pay the most attention. By using time repetitions, the fact that market inflection points occurred at some point in the past and should, therefore, reoccur at some point in the future, we should obtain confidence as to when SPY will reach a market inflection point. Time repetitions are essentially the market’s memory. However, simply measuring the time between two points then trying to extrapolate into the future does not work. Measuring time is not the same as defining time repetitions. We will evaluate past sessions for market inflection points, whether discretes, qualified swings, or intra-range. Then records the times that the market has made highs or lows in a comparable time period to the future one seeks to trade in.
What follows is a time Histogram – A grouping of times which appear close together, then segregated based on that closeness. Time is aligned into combined histogram of repetitions and cycles, however cycles are irrelevant on a daily basis. If trading on an hourly basis, do not use hours.

Yearly Lows (last seven years): 1/1/13, 4/10/14, 1/15/15, 1/17/16, 1/1/17, 12/15/18, 2/6/19
Monthly Mode: 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 12
Daily Mode: 1, 1, 6, 10, 15, 15, 17
Monthly Lows (for the last year): 3/12/20 (10:00pm), 2/28/20 (7:09am), 1/2/20 (8:09pm), 12/18/19 (8:00am), 11/25/19 (1:00am), 10/24/19 (2:59am), 9/30/19 (2:59am), 8/29,19 (4:00am), 7/17/19 (7:59am), 6/4/19 (5:59pm), 5/1/19 (12:00am), 4/1/19 (12:00am)
Daily Lows Mode for those Months: 1, 1, 2, 4, 12, 17, 18, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30
Hourly Lows Mode for those Months (Military time): 0100, 0200, 0200, 0400, 0700, 0700, 0800, 1200, 1200, 1700, 2000, 2200
Minute Lows Mode for those Months: 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00, 09, 09, 59, 59, 59, 59
Day of the Week Lows (last twenty-six weeks):

Weighted Times are repetitions which appears multiple times within the same list, observed and accentuated once divided into relevant sections of the histogram. They are important in the presently defined trading time period and are similar to a mathematical mode with respect to a series. Phased times are essentially periodical patterns in histograms, though they do not guarantee inflection points
Evaluating the yearly lows, we see that BTC tends to have its lows primarily at the beginning of every year, with a possibility of it being at the end of the year. Following the same methodology, we get the middle of the month as the likeliest day. However, evaluating the monthly lows for the past year, the beginning and end of the month are more likely for lows.
Therefore, we have two primary dates from our histogram.
1/1/21, 1/15/21, and 1/29/21
2:00am, 8:00am, 12:00pm, or 10:00pm
In fact, the high for this year was February the 14th, only thirty days off from our histogram calculations.
The 8.6-Year Armstrong-Princeton Global Economic Confidence model states that 2.15 year intervals occur between corrections, relevant highs and lows. 2.15 years from the all-time peak discrete is February 9, 2020 – a reasonably accurate depiction of the low for this year (which was on 3/12/20). (Taking only the Armstrong model into account, the next high should be Saturday, April 23, 2022). Therefore, the Armstrong model indicates that we have actually bottomed out for the year!
Bear markets cannot exist in perpetuity whereas bull markets can. Bear markets will eventually have price objectives of zero, whereas bull markets can increase to infinity. It can occur for individual market instruments, but not markets as a whole. Since bull markets are defined by low volatility, they also last longer. Once a bull market is indicated, the trader can remain in a long position until a new high is reached, then switch to shorts. The average bear market is eighteen months long, giving us a date of August 19th, 2021 for the end of this bear market – roughly speaking. They cannot be shorter than fifteen months for a central-bank controlled market, which does not apply to Bitcoin. (Otherwise, it would continue until Sunday, September 12, 2021.) However, we should expect Bitcoin to experience its’ exponential growth after the stock market re-enters a bull market.
Terry Laundy’s T-Theory implemented by measuring the time of an indicator from peak to trough, then using that to define a future time window. It is similar to an head-and-shoulders pattern in that it is the process of forming the right side from a synthetic technical indicator. If the indicator is making continued lows, then time is recalculated for defining the right side of the T. The date of the market inflection point may be a price or indicator inflection date, so it is not always exactly useful. It is better to make us aware of possible market inflection points, clustered with other data. It gives us an RSI low of May, 9th 2020.
The Bradley Cycle is coupled with volatility allows start dates for campaigns or put options as insurance in portfolios for stocks. However, it is also useful for predicting market moves instead of terminal dates for discretes. Using dates which correspond to discretes, we can see how those dates correspond with changes in VIX.
Therefore, our timeline looks like:

2/14/20 – yearly high ($10372 USD)
3/12/20 – yearly low thus far ($3858 USD)
5/9/20 – T-Theory true yearly low (BTC between 4863 and 3569)
5/26/20 – hashrate difficulty halvening
11/14/20 – stock market low
1/15/21 – yearly low for BTC, around $8528
8/19/21 – end of stock bear market
11/26/21 – eighteen months from halvening, average peak from halvenings (BTC begins rising from $3000 area to above $23,312)
4/23/22 – all-time high

Taken from my blog: http://aliamin.info/2020/

I see so many posts and memes in this and other crypto communities that talk about printing machines going "brr" and the inevitable inflation. These posts demonstrate a lack of understanding on how currencies work.
Just because a central bank prints more or less money does not necessarily imply that inflation will rise or fall. Inflation is a measure of how the cost of goods and services as measured by that currency change over time. If demand for a specific good falls or its supply increases, you can typically expect its price to fall as well. That's deflation in its price. If demand for a good rises or supply decreases you can typically expect its price to drop. That's inflation in its price.
The same holds for goods and services collectively, as is happening now. The aggregate demand for goods and services has recently taken a sharp dive. Supply has decreased as well, but the demand shock seems to have outweighed it. So prices are generally decreasing not increasing.
Qualifier: this is obviously an oversimplification but the point holds. There will always be variations by geography, and short-term effects caused by supply chains being impacted and people panic buying, etc. These are short-term effects that don't matter for the bigger picture. I'm talking about sustainable changes. And most currencies other than the US$ have their own issues as well.
Now to be sure, just like any other good the US$ is subject to to the same economic laws and dynamics. If its supply increases too much its value should decline which everyone would perceive as US$ inflation. However, the Fed has been singularly focused on containing inflation for the past decade at least and some would argue for three decades now. The long-term trend is decreasing not increasing inflation. In fact over the past several years the Fed has not reached its own self-declared target of 2% inflation. Some economists fault the Fed for its singular focus on inflation targeting at the expense of other goals like containing unemployment.
And the US$ has for decades now reigned as the world's reserve currency. That means that when things get risky investors in the US and globally rush to the "safety" of the US dollar: $-denominated government debt, equities, and cash. Recall that during the Great Recession when shit hit the fan in the US investments counter-intuitively rushed to the US$. I put "safety" in quotes because a big reason it is safe is precisely because everyone perceives it as such and rushes to it in times of uncertainty. But the Fed realizes this and makes sure they don't compromise this quality so this status quo persists. They have their eye very much on the ball.
Other countries would *love* to have their currencies have reserve currency status because it gives them more monetary policy flexibility, but very few succeed and then only partially. For now at least, the US$ reigns supreme.
Right now the consensus among world's brightest economists is a concern about US$ deflation not inflation (source 1 and source 2). This is because, mentioned above, demand has dropped so precipitously and the Fed is, notwithstanding what you might guess reading this subreddit, a professional organization with a stellar track record.
For the record I'm a huge crypto fan and have invested quite a bit into it. Mostly Bitcoin. But that's not because of some stupid impression that the Fed is currently printing the US$ into the ground as we speak. That will not happen. I invest in crypto because in the *long-term* I think it is a wise move and anti-inflationary. And because I like the control it gives me compared to debt, equities, real-estate, and other investments.
But I also recognize the shortcomings of crypto. It is far from used widespread. It's subject to regulatory risk. And these things can affect its status as a perceived safe haven. It is far more volatile than most respected currencies. Also, total holdings of crypto are dominated by a few large whales. These are very real not imagined shortcomings.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that crypto is great, everyone should invest some of their savings into it, but understand the issues. The memes and circle-jerk surrounding it and this BS about printing press are really cringe-worthy for anyone who understands what the real picture looks like. I realize this probably will not be a popular submission and get buried, but I had to put it out there. /End rant.

Stop Calling Bitcoin Deflationary. by Conner Brown The ...

Bitcoin has a stable monetary supply, in terms of purchasing power it's a deflationary currency. Tons of economists say that deflation is bad. These government economists never explain what's causing that deflation. I made this video comparing what's better: a little bit of inflation or deflation?

Fed-Induced ‘Deflation Crisis’ Will Cause Bitcoin to Soar: Hedge Fund Manager

[Serious] I couldn't answer this question when discussing Bitcoin with my Dad: Isn't it sometimes beneficial to allow governments to stabilise their currency if there is uncontrollable inflation/deflation due to unavoidable events? Wouldn't a global currency cause poorer countries to be left behind?

Bitcoin will cause the world to go in a deflation,

If crypto cause fiat deflation /r/Bitcoin

Could deflation cause problems for bitcoin?

Bitcoin will cause the world to go in a deflation, /r/Bitcoin

Why doesn't the constant influx of bitcoins cause a steady deflation?

Discussion of Bitcoin on r/changemyview, focused mostly around the cause of deflation in BTC and whether it is a good or bad thing

How come the creation of more and more bitcoins doesn't cause deflation of the price?

Bitcoin is built to deflate: The number of Bitcoins is finite, cap at 10.8M, causes deflation. Cash in any currency keeps getting printed, which causes inflation. Possible near-future BTC deflation is simply a market fluctuation. Do not fear!

05-01 15:06 - 'Libertarians: The fed inflates money, the Fed is evil. Fed: Ok, how about we allow for unforeseen events that cause deflation. Libertarians: The fed deflates money, the fed is evil. / You guys are idiots. You are such conspir...' by /u/junseth removed from /r/Bitcoin within 110-115min

Bitcoin Deflation can cause economic problems?

Refuting the myth that a Bitcoin economy would experience "deflation," causing depressions

Bitcoin is built to deflate: The number of Bitcoins is finite, cap at 10.8M, causes deflation. Cash in any currency keeps getting printed, which causes inflation. Possible near-future BTC deflation is simply a market fluctuation. Do not fear!

So this in how I think the price of Bitcoin is going to play out

What will undoubtedly happen from a macroeconomic (big picture) perspective... idiots

A criticism of the article "Six monetarist errors: why emission won't feed inflation"

How is deflation good?

N00b questions. Please redirect if there is a FAQ I can't seem to find

Where is Bitcoin Going and When?