Thomas Head-Rapson
Member
Hi.
Second turn at the "concerned troll" chopping block - see my first post in introduce yourself forum to understand why I say that.
Again, I have done a quick search for this subject, but not found a thread that applies.
If it has already been broached, feel free to point me there.
So, I like the way there is significant focus on usability in Dash, and specifically in Evolution. This is a contribution to try improve that even further.
Humans are not great at dealing with big numbers. We get by with conventions like "hundreds of", "thousands of", "millions of"/Mega, "Billions"/Giga, etc. Many, though not all, are fairly comfortable with those conventions.
We're a lot worse, generally, with small numbers - fractions and decimals.
We do have conventions to help here, too. Like micro and nano and mili. Much fewer of us are comfortable dealing with these conventions, though, especially beyond cents or mili, compared to those for big numbers.
I think this is a potential usability issue for a currency like Dash whose total number does not scale with total value, and whose unit value will therefore not stay constant over time, but will, in fact, deflate.
There are other reasons to maybe not like this kind of deflation, but I want to focus on the usability issue.
And, of course, inflation is also bad, which, to be quite clear, I am not advocating. But people are, at least, used to the idea of inflation, even if they don't like it. Deflation will be new to nearly everyone, and as such, many will have a hard time understanding it and adapting to it.
But, Dash will have a usability issue due to the necessity of using fractions of a Dash.
Dashcents might seem to be a way around this, the kind of convention for smaller units we are used to in currencies. But I wonder if this convention will be sufficient.
Evenually, there will be 18M Dash. To keep the same unit-value (let's call it) usability of the dollar, for example, one Dash would have to be roughly equivalent to a dollar.
But a Dash is already worth $80 at time of writing, and rising, so we are already nearly at the point were people have to think of a Dashcent like a Dollar.
So to spend 1c today in Dash, one has to think in terms of 1/10,000 of a Dash.
This is only going to get worse.
It is not difficult to imagine possible futures where, to buy a loaf of bread, say, one has to spend a ten-billionth of a Dash. This will confuse a lot of people.
Let's play with one example.
If we have an 18T, to take an easy-to-work-with, US GDP, what is the picture? (never mind that it is already much bigger, and that's just one market Dash hopes to dominate)
Well, at 1% Dash capture of the GDP, 0.18T USD over 18M Dash is 10K. i.e. Each Dash would be worth 10K USD and a loaf of bread would be about 1/10,000 of a Dash. It gets worse if one has Dash tied in asset values, or transaction volumes, or all three!
Will your mum feel comfortable dealing with 1/10,000 of anything, ever? Mine wouldn't.
Or 10% or global GDP in 2035? A dollar loaf of bread would be roughly a millionth of a Dash.
Just something to think about.
Tom
Second turn at the "concerned troll" chopping block - see my first post in introduce yourself forum to understand why I say that.
Again, I have done a quick search for this subject, but not found a thread that applies.
If it has already been broached, feel free to point me there.
So, I like the way there is significant focus on usability in Dash, and specifically in Evolution. This is a contribution to try improve that even further.
Humans are not great at dealing with big numbers. We get by with conventions like "hundreds of", "thousands of", "millions of"/Mega, "Billions"/Giga, etc. Many, though not all, are fairly comfortable with those conventions.
We're a lot worse, generally, with small numbers - fractions and decimals.
We do have conventions to help here, too. Like micro and nano and mili. Much fewer of us are comfortable dealing with these conventions, though, especially beyond cents or mili, compared to those for big numbers.
I think this is a potential usability issue for a currency like Dash whose total number does not scale with total value, and whose unit value will therefore not stay constant over time, but will, in fact, deflate.
There are other reasons to maybe not like this kind of deflation, but I want to focus on the usability issue.
And, of course, inflation is also bad, which, to be quite clear, I am not advocating. But people are, at least, used to the idea of inflation, even if they don't like it. Deflation will be new to nearly everyone, and as such, many will have a hard time understanding it and adapting to it.
But, Dash will have a usability issue due to the necessity of using fractions of a Dash.
Dashcents might seem to be a way around this, the kind of convention for smaller units we are used to in currencies. But I wonder if this convention will be sufficient.
Evenually, there will be 18M Dash. To keep the same unit-value (let's call it) usability of the dollar, for example, one Dash would have to be roughly equivalent to a dollar.
But a Dash is already worth $80 at time of writing, and rising, so we are already nearly at the point were people have to think of a Dashcent like a Dollar.
So to spend 1c today in Dash, one has to think in terms of 1/10,000 of a Dash.
This is only going to get worse.
It is not difficult to imagine possible futures where, to buy a loaf of bread, say, one has to spend a ten-billionth of a Dash. This will confuse a lot of people.
Let's play with one example.
If we have an 18T, to take an easy-to-work-with, US GDP, what is the picture? (never mind that it is already much bigger, and that's just one market Dash hopes to dominate)
Well, at 1% Dash capture of the GDP, 0.18T USD over 18M Dash is 10K. i.e. Each Dash would be worth 10K USD and a loaf of bread would be about 1/10,000 of a Dash. It gets worse if one has Dash tied in asset values, or transaction volumes, or all three!
Will your mum feel comfortable dealing with 1/10,000 of anything, ever? Mine wouldn't.
Or 10% or global GDP in 2035? A dollar loaf of bread would be roughly a millionth of a Dash.
Just something to think about.
Tom
