A thousand really isn't all that far fetched.  It's at 127 and hasn't even come close to becoming main stream.  One day, every coffee shop and gas station etc may accept bitcoin as a matter of course - throughout the world.  If that were to happen, 1K could be but a distant memory.

For thousands of years gold and silver has been a store of value.  Nothing has changed.

And by precious metals I mean the physical in-your-hand stuff, not that fake paper product that is about as reliable as greenbacks longterm.

Watch what happens when (not if, but when) the FED stops printing 85 Billion Dollars every month to prop up the stock market.  Suddenly many of those investors in stocks are likely to panic and rush to exits, perhaps turning to gold and silver as a means of preserving wealth.

Now Bitcoin could be a place they go to also.

At some time in the not too distant future this may indeed be a reality :-)

Back in the early 1990's much the same thing happened with the Internet - people would say bad things about it, saying it was being utilized for porn and gambling etc and etc (and they were right) and that it should be shut down.  They did not see the great potential for good.  Often those who know next to nothing about something will be the ones who express negative opinions about it.

Attitudes change when adoption of a "new" way of doing things hits a critical mass.  That mass is forming, you can see it if you pay attention,

I recommend first paying off all debts, getting your financial house in order and all that.  Anything extra that you can afford to risk - put some into gold and silver (proven as stores of value for thousands of years), and some into bitcoin.  They key is to only invest as much as you can afford to loose.

If you want surefire investments, buy and store food, clothing, and other stuff you will use anyway.  The price of these will only rise and buying them now locks in the price.

Ultimately, bitcoin succeeds when it is spent and re-circulated through the market.

As they say, patience is a virtue.

I live in the Great North Woods and there is a frost nearly every morning now.  It's heating my house as I write this.

I should factor that in, wood and oil heat cost money.

Look at their refund policy, and I quote directly from their website:

"All sales are refundable only if we fail to deliver. That means if we do not ship any machine at all."

There it is.  You'll get a machine of some sort.  That is the only guarantee.

And, you guessed it, they only accept bitcoin as payment.

From what I understand, as of today 40% of the worlds population uses the Internet.  That was a pipe dream in 1995, was it not?

I used to tell people about the Internet and they would shake their heads in disbelief and say they would never use it.  Hehe.  I bet few would admit to that now.

But I know many of you here on this forum were not even born yet in 1995 :-)  I was there.  And the Internet has changed the way we get media and do business.  It is like what the printing press did to scribes.  This BitCoin thing has the potential to be that big in the currency world.  Think about that.

I am not saying it will.  I am saying it has the potential to.  That's my opinion an I'm stickin' to it

I'd like to add that those people with thousands of bitcoins will eventually want to spend or trade them - otherwise what use are these bitcoins to them? 

What this means for you is that these coins can end up in your wallet.  How?  Create something of value, a net in which to capture them.  A business perhaps, or work for bitcoins.  The ideas are endless.

It's like anything else, there is a normal distribution curve:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

No need be jealous, if you want more bitcoin then create something of value and trade that value for bitcoin, just as you would do for dollars or euros or whatever it is you want to acquire.

Remember, bitcoin is just a store of value (IMHO).  You use it as a means of trade for the things you need or want: food, clothing, shelter, music, books (hopefully not drugs, sex, and gambling but that is up to you), and eventually cars, gas, medical, etc and etc.

In the final analysis, real wealth is in how happy you are in this moment and there is a normal distribution curve for that too!

When the FED reports the economy continues to be bad and more money printing is necessary, the stock market goes up.

Now does that make sense?  The economy is declared bad and that makes stocks rise in value?  If they say the economy is improving then stock prices drop.  The exact opposite of what should happen.

When that FED money pump stops - heads up because the sky is going to fall.

So then where will people who have money turn in order to try and preserve at least a portion of their wealth?  My guess is gold, silver, artwork, jewels, and to some extent bitcoin.

Say what?

When you think about it, the world is a very big place with something more than 7,000,000,000 (seven billion) people.

According to my calculations, that equals only 3/1000ths of a bitcoin per person. (.003 of a bitcoin).

If BTC were to go mainstream and be used throughout the world for transactions, even just 1% of transactions, a BTC could become worth tens of thousands of dollars.

I like $50,000.  That would make 21 million btc worth a total of 1 $Trillion, a nice round sum :-)

Of course, speculation and pipe dreams.  I remember the Internet of 1995 - many people I talked to about the Internet just didn't get it.  They get it now!

Well, Bitcoin is still relatively new and the majority of people do not even know what it is.  Because so many millions of people depend upon .gov for a living ie welfare, social security, jobs, pensions, contracts, etc, many people are holding off making any purchases.  Which includes purchasing bitcoin.

After all, if it were between paying your bills and feeding your family or buying some bitcoins, which would you choose?

This is borne out by observations several of my friends who own businesses have made: customer spending has dropped over this last week or so.

That carrot you ate today was probably grown from shit.  A good chance it was cow manure or pig, chicken, etc.

Shit is very valuable to the farms that grow your food - and food is more valuable than money - so don't disparage shit with your mouth full! :-)

It could be they are "well off" and just want to give mining a try for the fun of it, so see what it is all about.  There are many people for whom $400 is nothing - they make that much an hour or even in minutes at their businesses or even their jobs.

It is still the "wild west", I do not recommend "investing" more than you can risk losing and be comfortable with.

If you are looking for proven alternatives in coin, that would, of course, be elements that have symbols like AU and AG

As for the these new currencies, BTC and LTC stand head and shoulders above the rest.

All of this is, of course, IMHO and other opinions will vary.

I'd take the risk of earthquake over Fukushima any day.

Besides, Chile is no more risky on the earthquake measure than our friends daily face in Alaska, California, and other areas.  Think of the great San Francisco earthquake, for example.  Chile woulda looked like a mighty good place to be on that day!

You're spot on.  The "you sent me an empty package" scam is common.  I know because I've sent out tens of thousands of packages in my business and there are customers who probably never pay for anything they order online.

What we do is carefully weigh every order before packaging it up.  That way they cannot claim the package was shipped empty or with missing items etc.  Well, they do sometimes try but at least we know for a fact it didn't happen.

In defense of some customers, it could be a little brother or other household member gets to the package first and removes stuff before the real owner knows the package has arrived.  This is actually quite common.

We really need a customer rating system too so that merchants can avoid them.

As you mention, a company selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff every year is likely not going to try and scam you out of fifty bucks.  Doesn't make sense, just too small of an amount for them to risk losing the confidence of potential customers.