Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

Ah, how good it feels to not have been a greedy bitcoin evangelist. That is, 90% of the people pushing positive opinions about Bitcoin, have a stake in it, in investment - not actual, real use. Just a 'hope it goes up, so I can make money like a bandit.'

The truth is that if one really wanted to assist Bitcoin, they'd buy a few; not a treasure trove for speculative investment.

The really sad thing about this situation is that Bitcoin investors are not the usual class of investors that measure safety, volatility, and other factors. These are your hardware monkeys and computer geeks who have 15k saved up, find an investment they can finally relate to, and foolishly attach all their emotion to their savings floating inside a glass ball. I wish our kind could be more rational when it comes to enthusiasm and unbridled ignorance surrounding bits and bytes. Because it usually doesn't hurt us but when it does, we never see it coming.

The vast majority of bitcoin users aren't in it just for speculation. Besides this only affects Mt. Gox and not the dozens of other trade floors that are legitimate. If you'd do even a modicum of research you'd find there is more to Bitcoin than ponzi scheme price pumping.

In pure numbers, it affects around 10 - 12% of the market to be precise.

Would be interested to see a source for this figure. I might have thought the estimate to be somewhat higher.

dozens of other trade floors that are legitimate.

Do any of these "legitimate" trading houses let you sell Bitcoins and then /take out the money/, yet?

Until that's actually possible, for decent amounts, as a regular thing, Bitcoin's price is a sham of artificially trapping and holding people's money.

I sold 2BTC on coinbase (a YC comapny) recently. So no the price is not a sham.

That's not enough evidence to support that claim.

When anyone can sell any amount of bitcoins they like so the price could adjust freely, then the price would not be a scam.

But anyone CAN sell bitcoins freely. Just because you've tied them up in an exchange doesn't prevent bitcoins from being sold.

> The truth is that if one really wanted to assist Bitcoin, they'd buy a few; not a treasure trove for speculative investment.

Why? What's the difference?

The same affect as any collecting. Dispersing helps the economy, whereas hording has a chilling effect.

How is buying and holding for long durations any different from destroying coins, at least until those coins are sold?

EDIT: Btw, I don't think we're as far apart as it may seem. I co-created Freicoin afterall. But in this case I'm not sure there's a notable difference until the coins re-enter circulation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com