Hanshan on Nostr: Okay, lets talk "scarcity". In the economic sense, scarcity ≠ supply. The supply ...

Okay, lets talk "scarcity".
In the economic sense, scarcity ≠ supply.

The supply (number of units) of a thing could be extremely low, but if there isn't *demand, then it isn't scarce. Theres only one of that bored ape NFT, but dont nobody give a fuck so it isn't scarce.
Contrariwise, there could be a shit-ton of units but demand could also be insane, making the item extremely scarce.

Or the inverse examples of course, high supply with low demand making the item not scarce, or low supply and high demand making it extremely scarce.

So we cant look at supply only and there isn't a direct metric to measure "scarcity" afaict. Scarcity is the market interpretation of the relationship between supply and demand of a commodity.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin maximalism and how they misunderstand basic economics?
I'm glad you asked.

If Bitcoin has low demand, the hard cap does nothing to guarantee economic scarcity. In the case of low demand, it is *not scarce* despite having fixed supply.
Oppositely, the market could consider a Monero MORE scarce than Bitcoin if demand is increasing faster than the tail emission.

#Bitcoin isn't automatically scarce because of fixed supply.
#Monero isn't automatically non-scarce because of tail emission.