The dust unit is loosely defined as the minimum negligible transaction that will propagate on the blockchain. It has no significant value by itself as it is simply a commodity. In other words, you can't buy anything with a single dust point other than maybe virtual property. This is similar to what hashcash was intended to do.
The quantity of the bitcoin commodity that goes into a dust point will fluctuate marginally with the market, but will always remain relatively valueless by itself. That means while the dust point will still be useful, it will slightly deflate and excess virtual material will aggregate and build additional dust points when the wallet controls them properly.
The purpose of distinguishing dust points from bitcoins, is that they are not used as money because they are not a store of value due to their changing definition. Instead they represent a minimum transaction token only. That token can be used to secure other stores of value by means of securing their authenticity and chain of possession.
What will make this unit useful is when apps are developed that require a full blockchain transaction, but only for exchange of other stores of value which may require other regulations. The dust points act merely as a the transaction signatory. Many apps do this in many ways, but it would behoove the blockchain community to recognize a standard non-monetary unit that serves to decouple Bitcoin from the blockchain.
Of course bitcoins can still be used as money, but their use would be sub-optimal due to high fluctuation rates. In fiat terms, circulated coins tend to be worth more or less than the metal that makes them, as they are still relatively useless for anything but machine operation of which they have served well for decades and will continue to do so. So while the individual use cases will not recognize dust value, the overall ecosystem will benefit from the stability of using bitcoins as only a commodity and not a currency. Ultimately, the use of dust points will serve to represent an enormous basket-full of commodities. This may be similar to what Dr. Nash envisioned with Ideal Money.
tl;dr Bitcoin is volatile, but dust is always worthless as a store of value. Dust points are useful to secure and sign transactions of other stores of value. As the use cases of commodity exchanges using dust transactions increase, Bitcoin benefits from being represented by an ecosystem filled with an enormous basket-full of commodities.
The quantity of the bitcoin commodity that goes into a dust point will fluctuate marginally with the market, but will always remain relatively valueless by itself. That means while the dust point will still be useful, it will slightly deflate and excess virtual material will aggregate and build additional dust points when the wallet controls them properly.
The purpose of distinguishing dust points from bitcoins, is that they are not used as money because they are not a store of value due to their changing definition. Instead they represent a minimum transaction token only. That token can be used to secure other stores of value by means of securing their authenticity and chain of possession.
What will make this unit useful is when apps are developed that require a full blockchain transaction, but only for exchange of other stores of value which may require other regulations. The dust points act merely as a the transaction signatory. Many apps do this in many ways, but it would behoove the blockchain community to recognize a standard non-monetary unit that serves to decouple Bitcoin from the blockchain.
Of course bitcoins can still be used as money, but their use would be sub-optimal due to high fluctuation rates. In fiat terms, circulated coins tend to be worth more or less than the metal that makes them, as they are still relatively useless for anything but machine operation of which they have served well for decades and will continue to do so. So while the individual use cases will not recognize dust value, the overall ecosystem will benefit from the stability of using bitcoins as only a commodity and not a currency. Ultimately, the use of dust points will serve to represent an enormous basket-full of commodities. This may be similar to what Dr. Nash envisioned with Ideal Money.
tl;dr Bitcoin is volatile, but dust is always worthless as a store of value. Dust points are useful to secure and sign transactions of other stores of value. As the use cases of commodity exchanges using dust transactions increase, Bitcoin benefits from being represented by an ecosystem filled with an enormous basket-full of commodities.
