Even from the comments and my own understanding is Bitcoin acts more like an asset. It be very tough to run an economic cycle using it. Imagine someone ordering a truckload of clothing and promising salaries to the workers but by the time it's ready, value of Bitcoin would go up, hence that person will receive less Bitcoins unless specified. The buyer i.e. holder of Bitcoin will always try to delay payment, so they will have to pay less amount.
Why would they receive less bitcoins? If you agreed to pay 30 bitcoins, that doesn't change just because the BTC has increased in value. Conversely, when I agree to pay $200 to a lender, he can't tell me after than I have to pay $203 to cover the inflation costs.
What happens in that people make those agreements with the inflation/deflation rates already in mind, and Bitcoin actually has an upper hand since its rate of growth follows a stable pattern, unlike currencies that can be printed at whim.
the dollar and euro are also assets in that way. you're usually just not aware of its fluctuations (against each other, against other currencies, and against commodities)
Not quite. My point is Bitcoin is more like gold rather than any fiat currency. Gold can still be inflationary by finding new mining rigs and asteroid mining in the future but Bitcoin has a upper limit. So it will always be an asset against all fiat currencies. Which will hinder trade as the way I have listed above.
I believe the term you're looking for is a commodity.
Keep in mind that commodity based currencies (like gold) have existed for thousands of years. Bitcoin acts more like a commodity than these because there's a specific upper limit on the maximum quantity and you can't discover new bitcoins (at least after they are all mined.
But yes, this could be considered a good thing (no one can control it) or a bad thing (no one can control it).
