You've given me the answers I was fishing for. Seems I'm playing devils advocate.  People will try to view BTC through the lense of what is known or assumed about currency.  These differences you mention should be the first things articulated about BTC, when educating potential adopters. sorry if my tone was troll-ey. 

Who are you, the FTC? give me a break.

take it to the market place!

Aj, glad Im not the only one that caught that about selling the gold (assuming there is gold in there!)
If the gold were sold you know who would buy it, the elite. And then the american public would be stuck with nothing but TP.
He who has the gold has the power.
 

creighto,

my questions and observations are valid, anyone with knowledge of historical fiats of the past will compare them with this fiat.
Your answers and refutations are also valid and appreciated.  This dialogue is an attempt to get to the root of what problems may arise out of the system.
Anyone planning  large scale acquisition of BTC will do their due diligence.  This is the case here. Adoption wont happen with "its all good".
Many are satisfied that everything is worked out and infallible.  The same was thought of old fiats.
BTC is no different than any man created monetary device and it will be subject to the same market forces that destroyed old fiats.
What forces are most harmful to this currency? Liquidity? Govs? Hyper deflation/inflation? Its a laundry list.  Whats at the top?
 

phillips,

I understand what your saying, but Im primarily speaking to future scenarios, where hyperinflation might be possible if the number of issued BTC or fractions thereof had no limit or astronomical numbers. If 21,000,000 is the limit and the decimal can slide .000000, that gives us 2.1Xe13 BTC fractions. That is alot of BTC derivative.
The critical question is what number of BTC derivatives creates inflationary scenarios.

Yes the issue now is hyperdeflation of assets against BTC.  There will probably be medicine (a slippery decimal point) my warning is that the solution shouldnt be too strong.  Start with .00, then .000, then .0000 just as a stock split would happen against the USD.  The market will adjust accordingly.

Yeh, figured you wouldnt understand.  You have little/no knowledge of currency history or the workings of economics, that is what is starting to make me discount the underlying theories of BTC completely. No sound future contingencies or appreciation of the past 5000 years of what happens to fiat currency or the technicalities of its workings.  If you divide up the pie,  yes, there is the same amount of pie. My contention is that the pie can be divided INFINITELY.  Why not just move the decimal .0000000000000000000000?  or maybe
.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
Then there are so many BTC that they devalue based on supply demand curve. Have you not watched whats happening to the dollar?  Read the zimbabwe story, and you will probably start to get it, but my feeling is that you dont want to get it. Keynesians hear no see no speak no evil... Keynesian economics can be controlled by central planners for a certain amount of time.  But eventually it still goes belly up. This currency has no central regulation, other than adding more 0's.  In summary this currency modus operandi ends in complete collapse. 

Meh.

Ron Paul couldnt care less about BTC, he is a tangible asset man. BTC is another fiat. 
Tangible assets are very difficult to bring into existence and their supply is limited by physical restrictions...i.e. natural law. 
the bernank dollar and BTC can be jobbed anyway TPTB decide. Meaning, the zimbabweism ALWAYS takes hold at some point near or far.

Ivanish,

 technical indicators are concoctions of the past, and in this case are out the window entirely. Float, volitility, news etc etc, are making this mostly unreadable, although I did a "special" analysis last night that told me this was going to 32 within days, that target turned out to be today.

good strategy rabbit.  Those with (?) strategy will live to regret that.

Study stock splits.
I'm really surprised that the community has such little background in equities, revaluation of currency or commodity.
There should have been an economist at the core of this development team.
BTC is already trying to pull a quantitative easing 1.  But you have no board, theoretical basis or a bernank to oversee the operation.
so goes anarcho capitalism.

There should be an incremental splitting, first .000, then .0000, then .0000 up to some static limit, say .000000. If there is no absolute limit the BTC will go Zimbabwe and be defunct. The splits should be well notified in advance, say 2-3 months notice, then on a certain day at a certain time all BTC go to .000.  Then in the next X time frame they go to .0000 using the same process.  so forth and so on.

BTC is a threat because it shifts power, takes uncle gorilla out of the picture in terms of commerce.  The most dangerous aspect is that the mobs or other deviants could corner the bit coin market and indeed pose a serious threat to the system.  Drugs, porn and crime are hard to control, more so if the commerce of those trades are cryto. Id like to see BTC buying lollipops, pizzas, airplanes,  tshirts, mini coopers, dinner with friends, not the above mentioned.

mt.gox in the cross hairs. Theyll take out what they can, the BTC will just keep floating around I suspect.
Like I said, Fiat is their power, they will at all costs protect that power, by opposing any perceived or made up threat.

rtcw,

you and I are in the same boat.  I am a holder of bullion and US coin in silver.
Late june will be the time to back up the truck in silver.  I also was trying to
get some ounces out of a BTC trade. Going into the end of the year I think btc and silver will be nuts.
So frustrating that I was trying to buy at 9. No cigar. No silver.

well, I can tell you that many people are pissed off about the ability to get money into the system, mtgox or any other exchange.
dwolla sucks, liberty reserve sucks, bank wire sucks, it all blows, the private markets are lurky and murky . Ive been trying to buy since 9 and have witnessed a 20 point move. That is aggravating to say the least, considering its all upon the middlemen, which is the whole point of establishing BTC, get rid of these controlling middlemen. 

The craziness, all goes back to what I said earlier, that people here brushed off or didnt understand.  The float on BTC is so small  that the volitility on BTC will be insane. and it is.  Programmers are not economists and I dont feel that the community understands the dynamics of markets, float, volume etc. Ive been a trader in various professional markets for 16 years, and I tell you now, the insanity is just beginning because of the very limited float. MTGox is in over their head, and will become more so as things proceed. My guess is that the mob in russia is attempting to corner the market and with this float it wont be that hard. There are so many variables here, that the community doesnt understand, but I think the education is starting.   

Your thesis is nonsense.  have you heard of social stratification?  Societies defined by commerce or currency.  Them and us, or some such analogy. The global population has never been more stratified since feudal times. There are the lords and the serfs.  maybe BTC becomes the currency of the elites maybe it doesnt, but the serfs matter not in this
extreme class separation. The currency of the serfs is paper now, dollars to be exact, i.e. toilet paper. Gold, silver and assets are the currency of the elite, behind the curtain.
The elite laugh at the proles chasing their lives away for some paper scraps.  Good or bad?...neh, just the way it is at this time. What is BTC in this scheme, does it become central to power or to the masses.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Want bitcoins? Really it makes me want to shrug my shoulders and walk away.  I would if My money werent somewhere in cyberspace between dwolla and mtgox.
 There is is no transparency to the owner of moving funds. Lack of transparency is great if you want people out of your business, but
lack of transparency as to where  your funds are after 4 -9 days (as the BTC moves tirelessly ahead) is for the proles. 

Well Im pissed,  I decided to buy BTC at 9$  and between the crappy dwolla and tortoise slow mtgox, its been more than a week and I have yet to get a dollar into MTGOx or buy 1 frigging BTC.

 

so much for being right at the right time....when there are middle men and dollar conversions.

SCREW PAYPAL.  they WILL freeze your accounts, even randomly.  They own your money, and want you to know that.

looking for up to 100 BTC, payment through dwolla, or ugh...paypal
please be able to reference reputation by third party. Will consider smaller quantities.