With your graceful permission, I will repost here my recent findings.

Summary: Bitcoin could act as the world's reserve currency in 2013 and after, as gold did in 1913 and prior. This would give BTC1 = $300,000 in present dollars. Please comment on the analysis, not the outcome.

TL; DR: How long can bitcoin's purchasing power go? I have seen pundits posting as high values as 1 satoshi == $1. I do not think this is possible, the realistic limit for a value of 1 bitcoin is $300,000 in 2013 dollars.

I think the largest possible long-term value for a bitcoin is reached, when all the civilized world is using bitcoin as the reserve currency, upon which the international trade rests.

As we all should know (albeit very few do), gold was used as a sole reserve currency after the hijacking of bimetallism in about 1873. The gold standard was suspended in 1914, following the outbreak of the Great War. The framework for its destruction was already started being laid in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was founded. The destruction was carried out piecewise following World War I, so that FDR in 1933 could blame the remaining vestiges of the gold standard on all of the world's problems, and order the gold confiscation of 1933, and the devaluation of the dollar by 40%. This caused the great depression of 1933-1941. They needed another war to lift the country from stagnation. We are in a similar precarious situation now, and an apocalypse can likely be avoided, only be quickly increasing bitcoin's value, which is why I post this essay.

During the gold standard, as well as both before and after it, the total stock of above-ground gold in existence, divided by the population of the planet, has stayed remarkably constant.

In 1913, there was 1.65 billion people and 31 000 tons of gold. It is 18.8 grams per person.
In 2013, there is 7.11 billion people and 165 000 tons of gold. It is 23.2 grams per person.

Gold's purchasing power has stayed essentially unchanged from 1913 to 2013. A skilled worker in the U.S. earned $50 per month, which is 2.5 ounces of gold. The same 2.5 ounces today costs $3,500, which is still a reasonable wage of a skilled worker. Both amounts let you live in a relative comfort.

In 1913, all international currencies were defined in terms of a fixed quantity of gold, and were therefore linear representations one of another. Despite the large number of bills (banknotes) in circulation, the existence of real bills kept the gold's value from appreciating without bounds, regardless of the fact that the world trade and living standards increased very rapidly from 1873 to 1913.

When there was many goods coming into the market, the increase in the economy did not require dipping into the pool of the available gold coins. On the contrary, the overabundance of goods effected the rise in discount rate, which made holding present gold a relatively worse deal compared to holding future gold (i.e. real bills denominated in gold and payable in gold coin only, after a maximum of 91 days from writing, with 'interest'). Therefore the inordinate rise in gold's price as the consequence of specialization and the economic growth never happened. If somebody says so, it is not true. The economy expanded on self-liquidating, non-fractional reserve credit. (There was also non-self liquidating credit available such as mortgages and business loans, but delving into them is not the issue here.)

Bitcoins could serve as the basis of the future economy, in the similar way as gold did in 1873-1913. As as little as about 20 grams of gold per person could serve as the economic and financial backbone of the planet in 1913, BTC0.003 will do in 2013 if we give it a chance.

Making a quick conversion, using the value of a U.S. worker's monthly wage, we can calculate the potential value of bitcoin if this scenario ever becomes true. The monthly wage of a skilled worker would be 1.2 million satoshi, having a purchasing power of $3,500 in 2013 U.S. dollars.

Therefore a satoshi will be worth no more than $0.003, and 100 million satoshi = 1 bitcoin, will be worth $300,000. Any price above this (remember to factor in the USD inflation, though!) is likely a short-term aberration, or a bubble, and should be treated accordingly.

"for good" = English idiom, meaning 'permanently'. So somebody "being out for good", is one who is not coming back.

I think some you are still missing the point, that according to the law, in the event of a liquidation of a bank, the debtors of the bank must repay their debts (mortgages etc.) prematurely or face liquidation. This was not effected.

Think about it. The creditors get stolen from, before even trying to make the debtors pay. A clear breach of the law (and common sense).

The ECB has sealed the fate of Bitcoin. It will go to $300k in 2016.

Ah, way better.

Note to the newbies: all bears in the forum want to buy back cheaper. If they were out for good, they would not waste their time here with no prospect of material gain. Simple logic.

The more bears, the better. When all turn to bulls, they are already content with their holdings, and the continued price appreciation rests on the new entrants. This may go on loger than most expect, but will eventually go to bubble territory, and further crash.

And in case you want to back your sayin's with cold, hard cash, I am still writing $32 and $50 puts for the rest of 2013.

Especially as the prices are waay cheaper now than last Tuesday when I introduced them. 

In 2011 it took 5 months for the capitulation to be consummated.

In 2013, it took 5 days.

In 2011-2013 it took 16 months until we reached the pre-peak ATH.

 

Profit.

Nikola thinks it'll go lower. I believe $110.25 was the bottom for today. One of us is right

Bitcoin's volatility has impressed me several times before, though. I went +50,000 USD in with speculative capital the day when it smashed from 90->50 about 84 hours ago.

No, I did not buy at 50, my average buy point was 86! That was my smartest guess, which was outsmarted by the herd that day.

Anyway, half of that position is still long (half sold after a day at 92) and I will sell it according to schedule for a profit.

If it goes below 90, I will buy back. I am short term bearish for anything above 130.

My take would be, the time to buy back was 15 minutes ago. Hope you did

Yeah, I am one of the bulls here and I'm going to short that sucker. No euphoria, thank you. It's a bear market rally.

What an unbelievably bad timing. This just underlines the fact that you should never trade with a significant position, if your overall position is significant. (And if not, and you try to double your small stash by savvy trading, be adviced that you could as well employ a roulette wheel...)

So I take courage of the fact that I still have both my long-term position, and >50% of the speculative position left. The latter will be sold on Monday, if the rally continues.

I found out that there is indeed Internet in the conference venue, so I will be able to post the most important things during the weekend.

Cheese guys, soon you will be able to match all BTC1,000 paperwallets with their owners, and I start to feel queasy. 

Yeah, the thread is a troll, lol. But I agree with the headline. Bitcoin trading will reform into a two-tier system where BTC100+ transactions will be happening in the dealer network (every professional or large investor may enter but noobs will be kept out by certain requirements), and the retail trade is between a local OTC merchant and a customer.

I think next autumn, the majority of the trade will not happen in exchanges any more. This is a bold call, considering how sovereign the volume of Mt.Gox was last weekend. But they failed the very last time. The old school will not forget, and will discreetly withdraw their business from the casino.

Perhaps it was Mt.Gox's plan all along. If I were incapable of doing the very thing I ended up doing (by a fat chance, such as a 2000% increase in 3 months), I would probably just rake in as much as I could, and keep the service level so bad that it just dies away naturally.

I was interviewed today for an article of the runner-up Finnish finance newspaper Taloussanomat. I got to say something like this: "People are interested in Bitcoin for a wide variety of reasons. Some want to fight back the central bank, others evade taxes, and still others to buy illicit drugs anonymously. Without regard as to whether these reasons are good or legit in my opinion, they prop up the exchange rate of Bitcoin, and as an investor I will be among the ones profiting."

Ah sorry, the date range was just wrong. Your bad 

When the actual "USD/$1 face" price of 90% circulated coins started to go up, while the paper silver was crashing, in Sept. 14-16, 2008, I had less than a week before the friendly SWAT team from Finnish government raided my home and offices, confiscating almost all gold and silver that they could find. When they gave them back several months later, the "paper discount" had already disappeared.

Guys, if you want to buy silver right now, consider buying paper! Last time it gave a windfall to those who dared to buy at $9/"oz" in 2008. Of course there is a risk that it will not be honored, but last time it was. Don't think "this time it is different". Have your physical stash in a safe place, but don't run into the already thin market to buy more - in the event that COMEX defaults, your present stash will be more than enough of an insurance.

I also do some commerce, and I am salivating because of bitcoin. So you don't need to use it, I will

Perhaps he is indeed a reincarnation.

Quoted in anticipation for moderator action. Not all people can immediately see the troll here, which would lead them to believe that I actually said something like that. Can somebody please tell whether it is OK to alter the text in quotes in the way described?