Well I have no idea. But I'm not sure it matters. Bitcoin, after all, is allegedly not subject to the agenda of anyone.

I would buy more of them. Besides, the federal government outlawed gold ownership in 1933 for a few decades, so Bitcoin is in good company.

Yes Schiff (and many people) forget that gold is not backed by anything either. It's a commodity, a thing, and it has market value because it's primarily effective as a monetary instrument. The same is true for Bitcoin, except Bitcoin has a few advantages above and beyond gold (it can be sent across the world instantly, a billion $ worth can fit in your pocket, etc). It also has a few disadvantages from gold (could be hacked on your computer perhaps, or a flaw may exist in the coding, etc). The free market will weigh these pros and cons of both monies and decide the appropriate exchange rate between the two.

Bitcoin, like gold, derives its value from its usefulness in trade as a medium of exchange.

I'll posit an alternative theory. Some of the most visible Bitcoin devs will endeavor to appear as pro-gov, and make friends where friends need be made. This takes pressure of the anti-Bitcoin regulators, and gives Bitcoin time to become ever-more established, and hopefully unstopable.

If I were Gavin, or Garzik, I would shake hands with government officials and assure them that they had nothing to worry about. I would emphasize things that a Gov. official would like, and de-emphasize things which are libertarian, free-market, and anonymity related.

Put simply, I would publicly distance myself and Bitcoin from services like Silk Road, privately knowing that by so doing I'm making both Bitcoin and Silk Road more viable.

Going on a tv news interview and standing up for liberty and the right of individuals to purchase what they so please so long as they're not harming others... well, it may be the valid position morally, but it will not engender a favorable reaction from that hideous government which we are so eager to cast off, nor from the public opinion mobs to which we are unfortunately subjected.

TheDoc:  I also sent you .25, enjoy!  Don't be discouraged and please do continue to work for Bitcoins - a better economy for all =)

BitterTea: I share your concern.

IMHO - any core developer of Bitcoin, if pressured by a government official to "fix" or change something within the software, should politely but firmly refuse. If pressure turns to coercion upon this developer, he or she should consider removing themselves from the development team.

The best way to prevent society from collapsing in the first place is to move it away from fiat currencies and central banks =)

You assume that the market price a week ago was the "correct" price. Consider that a "correction" can also happen in the up direction, can it not? =)

If you're mining on your own (not part of a pool) then you'll never generate one coin... you'll either get nothing or you'll get REALLY lucky and get 50 coins all at once. If you're just using a CPU to mine, it'll take years to get that 50 coin block, if ever, honestly.

Hi Ian!

Just sent you guys one coin. If anyone deserves free market money, it's FTL (and the Free State Project of course) Heard about the FSP from you, and about Bitcoin from someone in the FSP... so it makes sense to send you a coin as thanks.

See y'all at PorcFest!

PS- if you try MyBitcoin.com (online wallet service) you can use their payment/donate button - might be a good fit for your website?

I like your enthusiasm, and I like that fact that you're enthusiasm stems from weeks of dedicated research and learning. The more I've learned about it, the more exciting it becomes. It is excitement bred from knowledge, as opposed to ignorance. A great way to tell a scam - if the more you look into it, the more convoluted or uncertain it seems, that's a problem. With Bitcoin, the more I learn about it, the more I understand how revolutionary it could be. Or it will collapse and I'll drown my sorrows in a bottle of booze =)

I would recommend you keep some wealth in gold/silver if you're going to bail on the dollar entirely. Many risks exist in Bitcoin.

It's decentralized because everyone is paying to different companies, in different nations, and with different goals, associations, and objectives. A centralized system is something like PayPal - if that company were shut down, PayPal is dead. Tell me which company, organization, person, or even nation could be shut down to stop Bitcoin?  I suppose it's susceptible to a nuclear holocaust, but if that happens we have more important things with which to concern ourselves. Like the zombies, etc.

It would if all variables were held constant, like in a laboratory. Unfortunately, in economics, there are thousands of variables and it is always dangerous to make conclusions like that. For example, the fact that the economy sucks doesn't mean Obama's socialism isn't good economic policy. And if the economy was strong, it wouldn't mean socialism was good economic policy. Way too many variables - conclusions must be very carefully drawn and examined. 

Bitcoin is not deflationary, monetarily speaking. It is always increasing in quantity, at a decreasing rate, until it stops increasing in quantity. Thus, it's always inflationary until it becomes constant - ie neither inflationary nor deflationary.

If the money supply of Bitcoins -shrinks- then it could be considered deflationary. But unless a bunch of people are throwing their wallet files in the ocean I don't see that happening.

Thus, if Bitcoin fails, it neither proves nor disproves that inflationary currencies are superior - it is after all an inflationary currency itself. Clearly, humans are so used to using inflating currencies that when they see one which inflates much slower than national fiat monies, they cry out that it's deflationary!   

Mining yields will be asymptotic... every week the difficulty increases significantly, making the break-even point get further and further away. My recommendation is to spend the money and buy bitcoins outright, then put your efforts into building a business to earn you more coins over time.

Zeitgeist is full of ridiculous claims, mixed in with some important insights that are valid.

What Zeitgeist calls for, however, is an economy without money or even strongly held private property. Such a society is silly, in my opinion.

95% of the evils in that movie could be removed from Earth if we simply started shrinking the government substantially... and that was obvious before the movie.

They'll listen to a non-citizen just as well as they listen to a citizen.

LOL spew is the right word. Does he not realize that the creators of many brilliant inventions get rich??  And those who invest in dying/outdated inventions lose out??  He seems to think that because early adopters may get very wealthy that the whole system is flawed. I think the system would be flawed if the early adopters did NOT get wealthy.

Ahhh what a brilliant man he was!!!  One of my favorite quotations:

"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

The same thing, of course, is true of health and morals. Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits: for example, debauchery, sloth, prodigality. When a man is impressed by the effect that is seen and has not yet learned to discern the effects that are not seen, he indulges in deplorable habits, not only through natural inclination, but deliberately.

This explains man's necessarily painful evolution. Ignorance surrounds him at his cradle; therefore, he regulates his acts according to their first consequences, the only ones that, in his infancy, he can see. It is only after a long time that he learns to take account of the others."

Don't let the decimal point fool you... it's arbitrary. There are actually (to use your number) 560,000,000,000,000 btc units in circulation now (each btc has eight decimal places).  I think the real number is more like 6.5m btc right now fyi.

It's true the market is extremely volatile right now, but it's because A) we're in a period of wild speculation and adoption and B) not that many actors are involved yet.  Volatility will necessarily smooth as the market cap grows.