Patri Friedman

Shouldn't we expect crypto returns to equal the growth rate of global wealth? I assume fixation implies that people are holding a constant % of their wealth in crypto. So as the world gets wealthier through productive investments, crypto value will also rise.

You're right. With a fixed supply of money, as more people use the same money supply to buy more things, the value goes up. However, altcoins/forks break this by expanding the money supply. Seems to me the "inflation" of token supply is >> the rate of fiat inflation.

'Pure' forks like BCH/BTC or ETH/ETC don't break this, because what matters is one's % of total supply which doesn't change. Of course it's possible fork in a way that dilutes existing holders too.

That can't be right. Total value of both pools after a fork must be same as value before. Otherwise forking is free money for tokenholders and they will fork until fork premium disappears. So, post-fork, same value is now spread over 2x the tokens, hence token prices halve.

Even granting your assumption, what you describe is not inflation. If I own x% of the pre-fork chain I own x% of both forks. If you claim value(pre-fork chain) = value(forkA) + value(forkB), then my purchasing power is completely preserved by a fork.

Call it "half-inflation" if you like. Purchasing power of pre-fork holders is preserved. But the exchange rate of the original currency will drop vs. all other currencies. Each unit of the original is now worth less of anything else. Seems like a form of inflation to me.