Quote from: JoelKatz on September 11, 2012, 06:29:25 PM

Quote from: jbreher on September 11, 2012, 06:25:50 PM

I remain keenly interested in your reply to BurtW's question explicitly addressed to you.

Sorry, which question was that?

Quote

Is there any single economic activity you would deem rational for someone who is long bitcoin?

Probably just about anything that doesn't promise impossible returns. Holding bitcoins can certainly be rational. Investing in mining can certainly be rational.

Holding, it may be argued, is not an economic activity, as it does not result in trade involving bitcoins. While it stretches the point, the same could be said of mining.

Perhaps you missed the post, or the points therein, in his post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92279.msg1170475#msg1170475

But more to the point, the returns PatrickHarnett is making are clearly not impossible. The Lending forum is replete with records of such returns. You could argue that you don't think such a biz could scale, and you could argue that in your opinion, it does not make sense to expand such a biz using others' capital. But that would be projecting your internal bias upon others' reality.