An interesting note from China's experiments with silver as their currency (after trying bronze, iron, paper, et al). They had ferocious debates in the 17th century about metals as a currency less because of divisibility (they still circulated small coins) but because of inelastic supply, making it too effective as a store of value: "Zhang agrees with the consensus opinion that the inelastic supply of silver rendered it unsuitable as the principal form of currency. The scarcity of silver was the chief impediment to sound fiscal and monetary policy. Chen argued that the superiority of silver as a store of value impeded its utility as a means of exchange. Use of silver inevitably invited hoarding, resulting in shortages of circulating media and disruption of commerce. Thus while the supply of silver was irrelevant to the question of generating wealth, the use of silver as money had deleterious consequences." --- Keep in mind these were people suffering under two consecutive dynasties of crippling debasement, economies full of a variety of shitty coins, and they STILL leaned toward increasing coinage mint output or reviving paper money rather than using their valuable silver for commerce because it created the wrong incentives. There are many old stories like this. Just something to ruminate over that you will probably never hear on a Bitcoin podcast.