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.