Greed is killing Bitcoin.

[XX55XX]

All of this speculation and hoarding is making Bitcoin too unstable for merchants. Wasn't the point of Bitcoin to create an alternative currency meant for commerce? But with its current volatility, I personally would not accept Bitcoin in my trade of business.

The irony of Bitcoin is that most people are hoarding it so that they might trade it back for fiat currency in the future... That is what really saddens me.

[wopwop]

BUY

[TheRenix]

Yeah, if Satoshi had only built the protocol to be Greed-Proof like the USD and Gold, then maybe BTC would've had a chance...  sad...

[gradient vector]

I don't see it being a problem in the long-term. Once the market becomes more liquid instant cash transfer will be available to merchants. I think bitpay and coinbase already offer this option.

[Seagull]

Greed is part of human nature, always has been always will be.

[odolvlobo]

All of this speculation and hoarding is making Bitcoin too unstable for merchants. Wasn't the point of Bitcoin to create an alternative currency meant for commerce? But with its current volatility, I personally would not accept Bitcoin in my trade of business.

The irony of Bitcoin is that most people are hoarding it so that they might trade it back for fiat currency in the future... That is what really saddens me.

Actually, most merchants don't really care about the price of BTC because their prices are generally fixed to fiat values and they generally sell the BTC as soon as they get it.

[tutkarz]

greed is killing everything not only bitcoin. World would be totally different if people would took as many as they really need. Not as many as they can carry.

[twolifeinexile]

All of this speculation and hoarding is making Bitcoin too unstable for merchants. Wasn't the point of Bitcoin to create an alternative currency meant for commerce? But with its current volatility, I personally would not accept Bitcoin in my trade of business.

The irony of Bitcoin is that most people are hoarding it so that they might trade it back for fiat currency in the future... That is what really saddens me.

If greed killed bitcoin, then be it.
Since almost by design, bitcoin use human greed to bootstrap itself into a real currency.
Drama continues....

[cr1776]

I think that if more people had "hoarded" yesterday, the price would not have dropped so much.    

This is the nature of a market change where you have a lot of new people buying, you're going to get days like this and I think long-term it will strength bitcoin to have weaknesses exposed to be fixed.  e.g. MtGox not being robust enough to handle a large volume.

All of this speculation and hoarding is making Bitcoin too unstable for merchants. Wasn't the point of Bitcoin to create an alternative currency meant for commerce? But with its current volatility, I personally would not accept Bitcoin in my trade of business.

The irony of Bitcoin is that most people are hoarding it so that they might trade it back for fiat currency in the future... That is what really saddens me.

[alexh]

I hope the Bitcoin system can stand the greed. Fiat money is nothing for our future!

[nuggets4all]

What a stupid post. Maybe OP is Paul Krugman??? "ZOMG!!! PEOPLE ARE GREEDY"

Shut up and read an economics text book. Hoarding is a necessary function in markets. Without hoarding, aka saving, markets could not prepare for the future.

[gollum]

The next step of bitcoin is a decentrlized p2p based crypto exchange where you can exchange any asset against any other asset.

With that kind of real time barter system we dont even need to hoard or speculate in the same way we do today with coins.
The assets traded can be currencies, shares, animal, lumber, books, oil, gold or whatever there is a market for with at least 2 participants (buyer and seller).

[odolvlobo]

The next step of bitcoin is a decentrlized p2p based crypto exchange where you can exchange any asset against any other asset.

With that kind of real time barter system we dont even need to hoard or speculate in the same way we do today with coins.
The assets traded can be currencies, shares, animal, lumber, books, oil, gold or whatever there is a market for with at least 2 participants (buyer and seller).

That sounds kind of like Ripple.

[gollum]

The next step of bitcoin is a decentrlized p2p based crypto exchange where you can exchange any asset against any other asset.

With that kind of real time barter system we dont even need to hoard or speculate in the same way we do today with coins.
The assets traded can be currencies, shares, animal, lumber, books, oil, gold or whatever there is a market for with at least 2 participants (buyer and seller).

That sounds kind of like Ripple.

Not really.

a) Ripple is centralized (owned by a few) even if their system is built on P2P
b) Ripple is a wallet to transfer assets between people, just like the bitcoin client, not an exchange where you put orders to sell at best possible price to anyone in the market.

[tomwoods]

Shut up and read an economics text book. Hoarding is a necessary function in markets. Without hoarding, aka saving, markets could not prepare for the future.

I would put forward that we approach each others points of view in an open way. We get used to shooting down each others ideas without thinking them through.

I can understand that if you have a bunch of bitcoins now, you are all excited because you are making a lot of money (not talking to nuggets, i address us all). I think there many reasons why people approach bitcoin:

1. Because they need a way to transfer something valuable to another party, and love the anonymity of it all.
2. Because they are tired of government manipulation, and love unregulated market dynamics.
3. Because they are tired of manipulation in general (this is where most of my interest in btc is).
4. Because its a cool experiment.

If you believe like me that people and/or groups of people are manipulating people's greed and driving the price of the bitcoin up and down to sucker them out of their fiat money, it is in fact ruining bitcoin for some of us. Mainly its reducing the value of bitcoin for people who are interested in 1. and 3.

I wish that bitcoin would evolve to serve better the needs of users interested in 1 and 3. Id like to be able to use my fiat currency to buy a crypto-currency, and know that if I left it alone a year, I could still purchase roughly the same products. That is if I could buy my weekly groceries with 10 btc today, I'd like to be able to buy roughly the same value in groceries 1, 5 years in the future. Free from bankster/power group and government manipulation. If It could also be transfered anonymously I think a lot of people would be happy.

I have come to realize this can not be achieve with bitcoin as it stands today.

Of course, for those who want to make money out of nothing by just sitting in front of their computers, and playing btc lottery, it would be no fun, and I understand that. Also it would be no fun for people who want to see pure market dynamics working, untainted by any kind of self-regulation.

----
I might be totally wrong, please be kind when pointing it out, and I will understand your point of view a lot better.

[tomwoods]

a) Ripple is centralized (owned by a few) even if their system is built on P2P

Yeah, sadly currently it would appear OpenCoin, inc is practically the government that hands out their ripples (XRP) like charity and saves a bunch for themselves. I haven't even been able to figure out how to get my hands on a ripple without begging for it from someone who has some (like the dude at the park in the movie Falling Down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwP2vV6Wm1Y )

[Stunna]

Completely agree, bitcoin is a currency it shouldn't merely be a speculative agent.

You should buy BTC to use them not to try and profit off fluctuations.

[Lethn]

I've decided I'm going to take the jump and trade goods purely for Bitcoins, I think the problem isn't greed, it's the fact that we have a deflationary currency tied to an inflationary currency and we also don't have many people adopting it for common use yet, people will probably have to not be so finicky about Bitcoin prices as well in regards to the exchange rate if they want to see more merchants around.

[alexeft]

I see many people are sad about bitcoin, but one thing must not be forgotten.

Bitcoin gained wide acceptance for the first time. This was the first time that it was shown in mainstream newspapers. These wild swings are to be expected, along with the relevant technical problems that were bound to come from its only single point of failure, the exchange that has 80% market share!!!

I am not against gox but I would prefer more exchanges, which I believe will come with time.

[Francesco]

he irony of Bitcoin is that most people are hoarding it so that they might trade it back for fiat currency in the future... That is what really saddens me.

A deflationary currency is not a viable option for economy, period. So you must keep yur eyes on the way out -sooner or later. Solve this, and I will buy much more.