That's not even followed.

If someone invested in a bicycle to "increase their wealth", it becomes immediately apparent why they're poor.  "Things" generally depreciate in value, that's a horrible investment (:

Yes exactly what I meant non-scam purposes like actually trading for goods and services not money/coins on exchanges that are being manipulated as far as I can see on a continuos basis.

Your wrong.  Gold production costs are only rising because companies are chasing the high price of gold.  The insane (and stupid) 3x, 4x, 5x multiplier between retail prices and production is causing gold companies to open more speculative mines.  Who cares if your costs rise 20% if you can sell instantly sell 100% of what you mine for 400%+.

Gold has no intrinsic value.  There is no evidence (based on 100+ year gold & production prices) that gold prices & production are aproaching each other.  Gold trades completely beyond any production fundamentals.  When people are scared they buy gold.  When gold is flat due to low fear and they see stocks, bonds, real estate, and other estates posting gains year after year people sell it.

Gold has numerous times in the past trade BELOW production cost and many times (like today) traded at insane multiples to production cost.  Your belief that either production or price are aproaching the other is false.

The only truly "centralized" part is the CPF, the Arbiter nodes work the same way as regular mining but are indiscriminately limited by miner wallet balance values.  And the CPF is planned to be overseen by a non-profit, just not at that level yet, but it will take some time.

What is this bullshit?

No offense, but this idea is stupid as hell. That bubble to $30 was nothing but an elaborate game of musical chairs caused by rampant speculation. But who cares about fixing that, and encouraging an actual, stable, and sustainable economy. No, let's just repeat the thing by having everyone pledge to hold coins and artificially inflate the price again! \o/

Again, we'll be starting a brand new game of musical chairs, only this time people are "pledging" not to sit down when the music stops. Do you not see how completely fuckin' retarded such an idea is? If I had to put my finger on the pulse of the one chief issue that's plaguing Bitcoin, it's that it rewards people who are dishonest at the expense of those who aren't. This idea of yours will do exactly the same thing, those who break their pledge first when the price gets too delicious will benefit at the expense of those who hold to the pledge.

Here's an idea, let the market do what it wants... isn't that, you know, the whole economic reasoning behind Bitcoin after all? Exactly how full of shit are the libertard ideals that make up much of this community if it's "laissez faire" until the market does something we don't like, then we conspire to "fix" it? Oh, let me guess - it's only market manipulation when the government does it? If it's private people it's just the invisible hand, right?

This is just wrong, wrong, wrong. If I send you Bitcoins, do whatever the fuck you want with them. With any luck and some really well funded market makers, we'll end up at a stable price (whatever that may be, it really doesn't matter) and we can go back to encouraging more merchants to use it.

A thought.

We're at the price range where I first bought Bitcoins. But at that time it was way harder for non-US people to buy than it's now.

I've been buying more on MtGox now that they accept EUR bank transfers and have a separate EUR denominated market.

There might have been a bubble forming at that time. But should a rally occur now, there would be much fewer hindrances for many of those who might want to enter the market.

So, any uptrend we'd have might be surprisingly strong. And we might just be on the way to another bubble.

Yes, that's a big problem with Bitcoin - there's absolutely nothing to prevent people from switching away from it in droves as soon as something better comes along.  The fact that a mass flight away from it is possible makes it a very risky investment.

Whereas, with the contractual agreement regarding BC2, even if people switch away from it, they have to still keep accepting it for at least a certain minimum value.  Kind of like how $2 bills are no longer made, but they are still legal tender (and still worth at least $2).

There is nothing inherent in BTCs "low transaction costs" (i.e. skipping physical exchange costs, finding buyers, etc.) that solves the tragedy of the commons. You have to be joking.

This talk of a "long-term channel" is all bunk.

Clearly, there are two things going on. For a good look at what the long-term history of bitcoin is, go to bitcoincharts, get the mt. gox data on a log chart with just the 30-day average. Bitcoin is inflating, so with a steady interest/adoption, the price goes down assyptotically aproaching a fundemental value. As more people adopt bitcoin, that fundemental value goes up. There have been waves of bitcoin adoption, each pushing the value up onto a higher curve which it follows downward. As time goes on, the rate of inflation lowers, so we should see the downward curve leveling off, and future price moves will be more determined by interest/adoption, rather than the inflation.

Then lenders would quickly switch over to denominating all loans in BC2, which would help the new currency to more quickly gain acceptance!