> To which I would like to ask: What's the point of a store of value if ultimately it cannot be exchanged for something else ?
It's very simple: Suppose you used Bitcoins only to facilitate transactions. You'd identify some good/service you want to purchase, buy the appropriate amount of Bitcoin on the open market. You then transfer them to the merchant who then sells the Bitcoin in his or her local currency. In order for that to work, the value of Bitcoin must be relatively stable over the timescale of the transaction. If ratio of Bitcoin to USD (for example) goes up a few percent over a period of ten minutes, then you're either giving the merchant a "tip" or he is giving you a discount. Either way, both you and he don't really know the cost of the good you are purchasing until sometime after the transaction.
More relevantly, if Bitcoin were to catch on, people would probably keep some assets in the form of Bitcoin so that they don't need to pay Bitcoint <-> USD transaction fees on every purchase. People will not do that if the value of a Bitcoin often changes radically between paychecks. Frankly, I can't see Bitcoin being used by "normal" people until the value is relatively stable (say, in most months the Bitcoin-USD exchange rate varies by less than 10% over the course of most 30-day periods) for this very reason. Unfortunately, the 21 million coin limit will prevent this from ever happening.
There seem to be a large number of people who operate under the misapprehension that "Inflation Bad -> Deflation Good." Inflation is bad, but deflation can be just as destructive to an economy, and having the ability to conduct transactions in a femtoSatoshi does nothing to fix that.
It's very simple: Suppose you used Bitcoins only to facilitate transactions. You'd identify some good/service you want to purchase, buy the appropriate amount of Bitcoin on the open market. You then transfer them to the merchant who then sells the Bitcoin in his or her local currency. In order for that to work, the value of Bitcoin must be relatively stable over the timescale of the transaction. If ratio of Bitcoin to USD (for example) goes up a few percent over a period of ten minutes, then you're either giving the merchant a "tip" or he is giving you a discount. Either way, both you and he don't really know the cost of the good you are purchasing until sometime after the transaction.
More relevantly, if Bitcoin were to catch on, people would probably keep some assets in the form of Bitcoin so that they don't need to pay Bitcoint <-> USD transaction fees on every purchase. People will not do that if the value of a Bitcoin often changes radically between paychecks. Frankly, I can't see Bitcoin being used by "normal" people until the value is relatively stable (say, in most months the Bitcoin-USD exchange rate varies by less than 10% over the course of most 30-day periods) for this very reason. Unfortunately, the 21 million coin limit will prevent this from ever happening.
There seem to be a large number of people who operate under the misapprehension that "Inflation Bad -> Deflation Good." Inflation is bad, but deflation can be just as destructive to an economy, and having the ability to conduct transactions in a femtoSatoshi does nothing to fix that.