So a lot of the speculation and weirdness would likely to some extent die off once it actually becomes a more directly exchangeable currency that is more widely accepted, provided this happens. Though new crypto currencies would still be speculative in nature. Likewise presumably as with any currency faith would still be important, just less likely to go off track because...
Inflation is theoretically capped, so to speak, as well as ever decreasing, at least for bitcoin and not counting how new cryptocurrencies means inflation to some degree, due to how bitcoin mining works(?). Or at least assuming resources and tech don't suddenly backtrack, there should maybe even be deflation as more resources are uncovered and tech makes them more usable? Which I guess inflation hurts the poor if they're trying to save, don't have a ton of debt, and can't outpace inflation on their investments as well as potentially being hurt by its effects on things like variable rate mortgages and the like, or on their wages not rising fast enough to keep up? (Not sure I get inflation as a tax on the poor, intrinsically, but I think I may kind of get some of it?)
Provided nobody somehow breaks the system, which would be hard to do due to the decentralized model of the blockchain and the fact that everybody holds a record of transactions(?). Though I have heard inflation hit crypto as though it were a tech stock kinda, which was weird to hear, but that could just be because even bitcoin's not a fully realized currency yet. Though like you said, that may also mean that it may be in a bubble and going to be worth less than one would expect from current prices in future practice.
The government could theoretically figure out accounts, based on what you're saying, then. And people could know every dollar you ever spent. (NGL, that kinda scares me a bit.) But not freeze funds. Which I suppose could be either good or bad depending on how you look at it.
I think I'm getting a little closer to understanding the topic now. Though I'm also seeing new questions crop up I think as I get closer to comprehension. Thanks for the info.
Money is a widely accepted medium of exchange. Commodity monies, like bushels of wheat or rolls of fine cloth, have some degree of value external to their use as money. Even gold has value as jewelry and in certain industrial uses. But money also has a value in its use as the medium of exchange and the unit of account. That's why paper money has value, even when it's not backed by anything. And bitcoin, though the market's still in the process of finding the price of bitcoin, and deciding whether it will really become money. (It currently has some features of money, but it's not widely accepted enough yet.)
Bitcoin is ultimately a deflationary money, because it's finite. As the number of goods and services in the economy increase, so will the value of bitcoin, because the same number of bitcoin will be used to exchange a greater value of goods. This contrasts with fiat money, which because governments seem to be constitutionally incapable of keeping their hands out of the till even when it's harmful, is always increased at a rate exceeding the real growth of the economy, and thus is inflationary. Central bankers speak about deflation as if it were this existential threat, using justifications like Keynes' stickiness of wages, and saying it takes away some of their tools to manage the economy (it's hard to lower interest rates below zero). In contrast, Austrians have no problem with deflation, basically thinking of it as a reward for savers, and saying central banks shouldn't be meddling like that anyway.
Inflation is a tax on both income and savings. Traditional taxes target spending (like sales tax) or income (like interest or wages), but leave your bank accounts alone. But inflation chews away at the value of your savings, as well as the value of your wages. This primarily hurts the poor, because the poor tend to keep more of their money in things like bank accounts, whose interest rates don't keep up with inflation. In contrast, the wealthy tend to have their assets in investments, which tend to appreciate in real value (i.e. beat inflation).
Also, inflation doesn't happen instantly. It spreads out in waves. The people who get the newly created money first are able to spend it at the old value, before the market adjusts. And the people who get the money first are the financial industry (which explains their huge growth over the past generation), because it's their loans that create new money. They then loan this money out to businesses. Consumers only get the new money at the very end, when the businesses give it to them in the form of wages. Since the wealthy have more of their money in investments, while the poor rely more on wages, monetary inflation transfers real wealth from the poor to the rich.
Look at the charts showing when real wage growth stopped keeping up with growth in the overall economy (GDP), or when the rich's percentage of national wealth started to increase -- the curve changed almost exactly when Nixon took the US off the gold standard, and allowed central bankers to inflate the monetary supply willy-nilly.