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Comment by bunnymancer | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin is, however, unlike gold, not a physically limited resource, which is what makes gold a more functional trading goods.

The entire concept of economy relies on the belief that an item without value can be used to represent value. Which is only accomplished through the belief of rarity.

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Bitcoin does have a mechanism to mirror this though. The rate of discovery halves every 4 years and only 21 million will ever be issued.

When the blockchain was started 50 Bitcoins per block were awarded until november 2012 when it was halved to 25. It is predicted to half again in 2017.

https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Controlled_supply&re...

Bitcoin is just as rare as gold (in fact, rarer). Mining only happens at a certain rate (you can't just materialize Bitcoins out of thin air) and it is capped at 21 million total.

You do know where gold comes from, right? From real, physical mines. It's not like you can materialize it out of thin air either (well, strictly speaking, you can, but it's not feasible currently) and there's a limited supply; however much is in the earth.

Uh, yes I know that. My core point is that Bitcoin and gold are equally rare, not that gold is somehow not rare.

Bitcoin might be considered "rarer" to the extent that the rate is pretty much fixed. It's not trivial to double the overall mining rate, whereas gold mines could substantially ratchet up production if they wanted to. (If a gold miner increases his mining rate, it doesn't affect the rate of other miners. But if a bitcoin miner suddenly brings a lot more computing capacity online, it's going to decrease the mining rate of other miners.)

Which bitcoin implements.

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