This still does not work.
“Holding money and earning interest from holding it” is a category error. Holding Bitcoin pays zero yield. No coupon, no dividend, no debtor, no tax stream, and no mechanism by which poor people pay holders a percentage. If someone earns interest, they are not merely holding money; they are lending it, which means they are taking risk and providing capital.
The “numbers on a spreadsheet” objection is also just an objection to money itself. Money exists so someone can produce value today, save the claim, and exchange it later for real goods and services. That is not a bug. That is saving.
A non-inflationary currency is actually a better representation of real value, because the unit is not constantly being diluted. Inflationary money lets nominal wealth rise even when no real value was created. Hard money makes the test harsher: did you actually create value, or did the measuring stick just get worse?
And no, people would not “just sit on Bitcoin.” People still eat, rent, travel, build, compete, seek status, start companies, buy homes, and take risks to outperform others. The only thing that changes is the hurdle rate: an investment has to be better than simply holding money. That is not economic failure. That is discipline.
The fair criticism of Bitcoin is volatility and unequal distribution, not this imaginary mechanism where holders magically receive interest from the poor by owning spreadsheet entries. That mechanism does not exist.
EDIT: The rich/poor angle is almost backwards. In an inflationary system, holding money is a guaranteed loss, so ordinary people are forced to become amateur investors just to avoid being debased. Rich people are already positioned for that: they own assets, businesses, real estate, equities, and can borrow cheaply against them.
In a non-inflationary or hard-money system, simply holding money is not a guaranteed losing strategy. You keep your share unless you voluntarily take risk to increase it. That is a very different game. The rich can still get richer, but they have to outperform by allocating capital well, not merely by being closest to the asset-inflation machine.
Same with wages. Under inflation, your employer can cut your real salary without saying anything: they just give you a raise below inflation, or no raise at all. You have to fight constantly just to stay even.
Under hard money, that hidden pay cut is much harder. If prices are falling or money is appreciating, keeping the same nominal salary can mean your real wage rises. To reduce your real compensation, the employer has to make the cut explicit or offset it with benefits. That is a completely different power dynamic.
So no, inflation is not obviously pro-poor. Very often it is a quiet tax on people least able to escape cash and wages.
Money is time. The time that’s passed isn’t as good as right now.
Real value deteriorates due to entropy. If I harvested some lettuce this week, in a year I don't still have lettuces - I have a pile of stinky mush. Keeping value steady requires a continual input of effort.
I'd accept "leaky currency" as a substitute for inflation. The important thing about inflation is that you have to keep running just to stay in one place - not that the numbers keep going up. Stable prices are nice, I agree on that.
Bitcoin's volatility is caused by its deflationary nature. Monero is inflationary, and much less volatile.
In an inflationary system, normal people are forced to keep earning money. "Becoming amateur investors" is your way to say "keep generating real value". If you want to surpass Elon Musk you have to invest, but that's nothing to do with the inflationary currency. That's because Elon Musk uses deflationary currencies like land and Ponzi currencies like Tesla stock. He just sits on them, and he will get out of the Ponzi ones before the top because he controls them. As they say, bad money drives out good. But you cannot build a stable economy on hyper-volatile gambling.
Monero is disinflationary, not inflationary. The rate of new coin emission is only enough to maintain equilibrium with the rate of coins being lost (due to people losing wallet keys, etc.). So your comment about being forced to keep earning doesn't apply to Monero.
The price is intended to decrease. If people are losing money (causing the price to increase) at the same rate the price decreases that's on them.
This mixes up real depreciation with monetary debasement.
Lettuce rotting is not an argument for money rotting. Perishable goods decay, machines depreciate, buildings need maintenance, and inventories have storage costs. Prices can reflect all of that. The measuring unit does not also need to decay.
Money is not supposed to preserve lettuce. It is supposed to preserve a claim on value across time. If I produce value today and save the proceeds, I should not be forced to lose purchasing power just because the unit of account was designed to leak.
Also, “forced to keep earning money” and “forced to become an investor” are not the same thing. In every system, people have to keep producing if they want to keep consuming. The difference is that under inflation, even after producing and saving, your savings are diluted unless you buy risk assets. That does not necessarily mean “generating real value.” Often it just means bidding up existing assets.
Bitcoin’s volatility is not simply “caused by deflation.” It is caused by uncertain demand, adoption cycles, liquidity, leverage, regulation, speculation, and the fact that it is still monetizing. A fixed supply makes price more sensitive to demand shocks, sure, but that is not the same as saying deflation mechanically causes volatility. Monero’s tail emission is also tiny, under 1% and declining over time, so it is hardly a normal inflationary currency.
And the Elon Musk example basically proves the opposite point. Rich people already escape inflation by holding scarce assets: land, equity, businesses, real estate. Poor people are the ones stuck holding wages and cash. A harder money system does not eliminate inequality, but it at least stops making cash itself a guaranteed melting ice cube.