I think the absolute majority of ppl invested in BTC are capitalist pigs who enjoy rampant speculation: But I, like many others, would not have invested in it if we did not think that the project has are serious opportunities to grow and it is basically sound.

For a competitor to emerge would need at least that it offers major technical improvements. And if it happens, no problem, just be ready to jump in early.
 
And if you need to invest millions anonymously, just split them up.

Any trading / bitcoin commerce site need to have a reputation system. That is how ebay solved the problem once and for all.

What I feel lacking and to be urgently developed at the moment is:

1) a client for mobile phones;

2) an optional encryption and redundant backup of your wallet somewhere in the cloud.

A very good commentary on the Doug Casey interview posted above:

The Economics Of Bitcoin – Doug Casey Gets It Wrong
http://webabuser.blogspot.com/2011/06/economics-of-bitcoin-doug-casey-gets-it.html

I know only 2 kinds of currencies: commodity-currencies: backed, or consisting of some commodity (precious or base metal, shells, or whatever commodity),
and debt-based currencies: backed by debt, and therefore some credibility to have debts paid, like courts, police, army, in short the state.

But Bitcoin is clearly none of this. Here comes the problem, until (if) it will become self-backed like gold and silver.  

Check out a recent interview to Doug Casey (a famous investor /speculator) on Bitcoin:
Doug Casey on Bitcoin and Currencies
http://webabuser.blogspot.com/2011/06/doug-casey-on-bitcoin-and-currencies.html

I tend to agree with him is that the main problem is that Bitcoin is "backed by nothing" but the full faith and credit of adopters.
I would add that millions of bitcoins concentrated in the few hands of founders and early adopters means that these ppl can move the price as they please. That is quite bad.

I see no problem with a deflationary currency: even gold and silver are deflationary, and they worked fine a few thousands of years.

Why are you being dollar-centric? BTC is global, and so must be the scheme of reference and comparison.
Feel free to abstain to answer me since i am not interested in your b/s.

Capitalism of the ponzi kind, where insiders "early adopters" of "moneis" pulled out of their asses backed by nothing  apart from the processor cycles of others who pay the bill get 90%+ of the dough free just for fooling suckers wannabe speculators attracted by the price inflation caused just by the tulip-mania.

I am going back to the real world capitalism as soon as I will be able to to unload my BTC to fools greater than me at the price that I paid, thanks

Thanks for proving that you are speaking out of your ass.

Bill Gates Net Worth: $56 Billion: 2011
Total global wealth: USD 195 trillion (*)
(*) https://www.credit-suisse.com/news/en/media_release.jsp?ns=41610

That is several orders of magnitude away from 8%.

There is more and less equal distribution (look for "Gini index"), but 8% of the global wealth in a single wallet is beyond bizarre.
And how would this guy earned this stash? Mining with his private multi-terahash pool for a couple of years? Selling drugs on a massive scale?
This is a ponzi and probably a scam too.
Ridicolous that nobody notice the enormity of the anomaly.


[/quote]

Feel free to provide an example of a currency that IS evenly distributed.  Just because lots of people have a US Dollar doesn't mean it's evenly distributed.
[/quote]
[/quote]

I sez half million of frigging bitcoins.
You are not up to date with the biggest Bitcoin news of the week:

https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due-to-a-compromised-account-rollback

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=19525.0

This revealed that bitcoin distribution is much more unequal than than dollars, euros, gold or whatever.
Too much advantage for early adopters to not smell, sound, and taste like a Ponzi.
I am going out of this.

Just wondering. As somone else noted here, it seems too much to not be highly weird that they were sitting in a single wallet. That sum may be enough to move the BTC price in any way. Moreover, it seems too much to have been plausibly earned in a legitimate way (anyone mined 100K+ BTCs?)   

Well, most of fiat currencies do not inspire much more trust to me (actually, much less). And I even got an haircut holding physical gold during the 2008 crash.
I think that a small amount of BTC in your portfolio (maybe 1-3%) offer an interesting opportunity of diversification with high risk/potential reward.  
Most of my stash remains stored in physical gold and silver bullion though.

Me too. Bought about 700$ of BTC when it seemed stabilized after a couple of days around 19$. Then all hell broke loose. And I even left my BTCs in MtGox and now cannot take delivery! (Hoping they are still there)