The OP isn't about double spending. But, the point was being made in this thread that BTC and the gold/silver paper markets are similar. While it can be argued they are similar in that they are both small compared to the fiat market, and can thus be more easily manipulated, you can't just make BTC out of thin air. Well, no more than 50BTC every 10 minutes or so by mining.
Aah, but that was not why i think they carry similar risks.
Both bitcoin and gold tend to make people collect it (moreso than fiat).
This then gives a smaller number of people bigger ammounts of power to act on the market.
Bitcoin is in an extreme situation where at the moment half the available bitcoin are in hands of a (on a global scale) small group of people.
I think that this will be a serious problem for bitcoin in the future, but others have disagreed.
