...but this ridiculous price bubble will destroy Bitcoin and probably all other cryptocurrencies when it pops. For 99.99% of the Bitcoin community this is irrelevant as you are involved purely to profit, you have no ideological interest in the underlying concept, but for those who are genuinely interested in alternative currency models it's a pending disaster.
The speculators will move on when it crashes, the winners will take their winnings and the losers will lick their wounds. The people left behind who are ideologically invested and not just financially so will find they've been left salted earth.
When I first heard of Bitcoin, I thought it was an ingenious anti-establishment venture, and I decided that I was going to put 500GBP into it just to support the venture....but I never did.
Around the time of the first Bitcoin Crash (July 2011), when some US politician very kindly publicised Silk Road, I was right on it, with hundreds of Bitcoin passing through my hands in exchange for manner of exotic mind altering substances. At this point, I seen the huge potential of a highly liquid digital asset, anonymous enough to be used for transactions in Class A substances (and also much more nefarious items no doubt). I thought at this point, (Bitcoins ~ $10 USD), that I was going to put a few grand into the coin as a wild card investment that may just pay off, but I never did.
Then the March/April 2013 came around. I was holding only 2 Btc in my wallet. I called it out as a bubble as Btc passed 50 USD, and never got involved (again, much to my personal chagrin). I witnessed the hubris on this site and other sites, full of clueless tools with their cowcrap paradigms of what was driving Bitcoins. Then April 14th came around, we know what happened. I viewed the whole phenomena as hugely destructive to Bitcoin's future as the sort of underground digital currency that I thought it might be, and for this very reason, did suspect that the bubble/crash phenomena was deliberate, and suspected that it would happen again, and again, until one day, it couldn't, or wouldn't be allowed to happen again. I swore that next time, I was going to get and hold until the parabolic stage. I got in, and sold at $330 (again, much to my chagrin), immediately sensing the error of my ways, I tried to get 5K of GBPs wired across to my Bitstamp account. In the week that has went past since (funds still not at Bitstamp), Bitcoin has doubled. Now, after the parabolic and erratic behaviour today, there is no fkn way am I putting a penny of my hard earned dosh into Btc. If history is anything to go by, the top could be 300% of profits away from me getting cold feet and turning bearish, but the crash will come and it will once again, be hard.
Next time around, after the crash and the price begins to show stability at a certain level once again, I will be diving into Bitcoin with a sizeable proportion of my personal capital, and will see how long I can ride the waves before cashing out like a little pussy some 300-400% from the top.
Point is, in my personal estimations, Bitcoin has went from an interesting anarchic innovation, to a real contender as a reliable alternative currency that can allow the little man to operate out from under the nose of corporate governance, to the ultimate speculative roller coaster device. The reality today, is that 99.9% of the Bitcoin fraternity are seeking massive profits.
I very much agree with the salted Earth analogy, but like everyone else, would also glady profit from the cannibalisation of something that could have transformed humanity for the better, in order to improve my personal lot in the current corrupt petrodollar economic hegemony.
