That would be true, if this were a ponzi scheme.
I feel compelled to respond to creighto's remark here.
People in general, me included, have a difficult time believing that out of the ashes of the recent economic collapse (the RE market collapse as well as the Madoff-like, greed based ponzi schemes) something as awesome, beautiful and as powerful could arise as the result of the efforts of a single, or perhaps and more likely, a group of technically/economically minded/skilled individuals.
The automatic, default response to anything novel and revolutionary, is at first, denial and ultimately, acceptance while pretending nothing new ever happened.
A perfect example of the emotional/psychological/thought/belief-based roller coaster that we all go through when faced with something so big and so 'surreal' is captured in this just as awesome, beautiful and powerful quote as BitCoin is, by William James:
When a thing is new, people say: "It is not true".
Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: "It's not important."
Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say "Anyway, it's not new."
Now, I've personally known a
few people in my time who have achieved something revolutionary, not because they had any idea how to do it when they set out to do it, but because they all had the following things in common at the level of whom they were
being:
1) an intention to create something Good (Good here is defined according to my Judeo-Christian belief system)
2) a complete surrender of their personal philosophy/worldview/doctrine in lieu of another's philosophy/worldview/doctrine. They answered their God-given Calling.
3) they executed and finished it
Steve Jobs... is one of these people. Bill Gates... is another one of these people. In my view, Satoshi, whom as far as I am concerned at this point in time might as well be Keyser Söze, is one of these people as well.
I choose to create a personal relationship with Satoshi by starting with a $100 USD investment into BTCs, much in the same way I have created a personal relationship with Steve Jobs by owning a MBP, or Akio Toyoda, by owning two Toyota vehicles, mine and my wife's.
My trust in BitCoin, vis-a-vis, Satoshi, is 100%. I risk getting screwed over by BitCoin/Satoshi. Upon reading the whitepaper, I am confident that Satoshi's intentions are noble, despite any imperfections BitCoin's heuristics may have.
My suggestion to everyone here is to trust Satoshi until he cannot be trusted any longer. I know this doesn't sound "revolutionary", but in fact, all of these skeptics and naysayers are actually PRETENDING to know that Satoshi is a scammer, and thus BitCoin is a scam. Fact is - they don't know anymore than I know that he is genuine. They want to peek around the corner of time when the only way to find out is to play the game. If indeed he turns out to be a scammer, the people with the highest levels of greed today risk getting screwed the most anyway. The other ones can shrug off the loss. One thing I am certain of, if Satoshi is proven to be a scammer, he will be no more, much like Bin Laden, or Ratko Mladic.
Barring any serious technical analysis of Satoshi's BitCoin heuristics/algorithm that can prove it logically unstable or easily defraudable by a large entity with much time/cash to spend on a systematic attack toward this purpose, I welcome you to the new world currency - BitCoin.
Dive in, the water's just fine (for now!)