advantages of my favourite "long downward slide" scenario

[EuroTrash]

DISCLAIMER: my speculation pocket is half cash/half coins at the moment. So I have not much interest in talking the price up or down. In both cases I win some and I lose some.

Crazy hoarding takes a break. Get-rich-quick dreams die of euthanasia.
You still buy coins to make your purchases but you do not hold them because they are slowly depreciating over fiat.
Dollars/euros or any other weapon-backed currency stay price reference for everything that matters to the public.
But Bitcoin achieves its goal of being an alternative to moneygram/paypal/western union, especially in countries where such instruments are unavailable while getting dollars/euros is expensive or illegal.
New exchanges start popping up like mushrooms - by then maybe the Ripple protocol plays a role into balancing the price and providing the liquidity needed for their users to operate without much slippage. Or maybe not.
The money flow makes it so that an economy of sellers/buyers of goods and services develops using bitcoins. Over time it grows to the day that the average joe is educated to think of bitcoin as an exchange medium for goods (as opposed to gambling/speculation money).
That day the fiat price trend starts reversing again. But a much bigger economy is behind it. Allowing for a long, gradual demise of dollars/euros.

OK, last part is probably visionary. But the rest... what do you think?

[Idaho]

I think there is a paradox. Relative price stability, even with a general downward trend, is favourable and in itself may encourage take up.

[chriswilmer]

It seems like there are three camps in the bitcoin community:

1) People who believe bitcoins should be used (primarily) for P2P payments. This camp thinks hoarding is bad.
2) People who believe bitcoins are (primarily) a great store of value, but also can be used for P2P payments. This camp thinks hoarding bitcoins is perfectly fine, and that using bitcoins to pay for things is something that will happen more in the future after the price stabilizes.
3) People who think bitcoins are great for both purposes.

Bitcoin haters fall into the fourth camp.

Personally I am mostly in camp 2. I think bitcoins are the most useful (right now) as a store of value, and that hoarding them is great for everyone.

[Francesco]

It seems like there are three camps in the bitcoin community:

1) People who believe bitcoins should be used (primarily) for P2P payments. This camp thinks hoarding is bad.
2) People who believe bitcoins are (primarily) a great store of value, but also can be used for P2P payments. This camp thinks hoarding bitcoins is perfectly fine, and that using bitcoins to pay for things is something that will happen more in the future after the price stabilizes.
3) People who think bitcoins are great for both purposes.

Bitcoin haters fall into the fourth camp.

Personally I am mostly in camp 2. I think bitcoins are the most useful (right now) as a store of value, and that hoarding them is great for everyone.

It would be quite interesting to discriminate how many fall into each category. If Bitcoin is a way of paying with low fees, I guess it is vulnerable to be replaced by i.e. litecoin, or Ripple. If instead it is an e-gold, which holds value because it holds value and people agree on that, then there is quite nothing that can replace it, as the only thing that matters is how established it is, while practical considerations are less important.

[zby]

Is it different this time?  There are lots of things that are different from 2011 - the hype is much bigger - but so was the peak price.   The hype was driving the price up and so it was factored in the peak price.