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Comment by jsbg | Hacker News Reader

yes, that is what deflation is

The deflation of a currency is when the currency gets more expensive, not cheaper. It's true that other goods get cheaper when measured in that currency. But what we're discussing here is whether, and how, the continued deflation of Bitcoin discourages its use as a medium of exchange, not whether some hypothetical deflation of the dollar would discourage the use of other goods such as memory cards and Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

>The deflation of a currency is when the currency gets more expensive, not cheaper.

This is a perversion of the economic definition of inflation and deflation.

Inflation is the rate of change of prices.

These are two different ways of looking at the same thing, but the crucial issue here is the direction of inflation: inflation is when prices, measured in the currency in question, go up, not down. That is to say, the value of the currency, measured in terms of any given good, goes down, not up. jsbg was getting this backwards, and your comment isn't helpful in clarifying their confused thinking.

Historically speaking, the "printing too much paper money" definition of "inflation", which is more or less what you're saying is "a perversion of the economic definition of inflation", preceded the "general increase in prices" definition you're talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Classical_economics

Deflation is a fall in the general price level. A fall in the price of some goods or of a particular good is not deflation.

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