@rezin777: As a newcomer to Bitcoin my original post was meant to help me determine whether or not Bitcoin is legit. As I see it is the custom here, I will match you analogy with an analogy of my own. Imagine two financial scenarios. In the first a bank sources and packages a set of mortgages into a security, selling it to investors based on the quality of the underlying loans. The bank makes a commission and hefty profits whichever way the mortgages end up going. The mortgages tank worse than predicted and the investors lose everything.  No one blames the bank for keeping the money they made. Thats called good business. Now a second scenario, a similar bank owns a massive amount of mortgages and knows they are going bad. They have got to get them off their books ASAP. So they package them into a security, selling it to investors and lying to them by telling them they quality products. They are so sure the mortgages are going to go bad they bet against the security and joke amongst themselves about the people who are buying it, and then make a killing when it tanks. Thats a scheme.