Quote from: johnyj on November 30, 2013, 11:37:27 AM

The Bitcoin network is not in anyway like paypal or VISA, it is very similar to central banks issue moneys in big blocks and distribute them to the society. Just like the FED never issue credit cards, it is a waste of resource to use bitcoin to do micro payments, and in daily life, people really want to spend the fiat money first

Bitcoin won't replace fiat money, since their usage don't overlap: Fiat money is for spending, its value drops each passing year, and bitcoin is for saving, its value rises each passing year

Bitcoin is an unique addition to existing financial world and it will be welcomed by all the existing players, since it has the highest credibility on the planet and will be regarded as the most trustworthy store of value

If there is no cost to operate the bitcoin network, then bitcoin can also carry out the mission of micro payments, but when the network traffic and computing power is a limited resource, there should be a focus on its major usage

Bitcoins value just rises, because people believe it might become an alternative currency. It doesn't just rise because it is rare. In this case, all the people saying bitcoin is just another pyramid scheme would be right. All these systems declaring "this and this is now rare and we will sell it to you" failed. Bitcoin as value storage is a tech bubble, because it has no real usage.
Bitcoin as a currency has a real usage and thus it has a value. And I'm very happy, that the number of shops accepting bitcoin is growing, I don't want that to go backwards.
Bitcoin will definitely not be welcomed by the existing players. The players have their systems and they use them. They don't need a decentralized alternative. The people need that, not the banks.
Network traffic and computing power is a very, very, very cheap ressource. You don't keep your fiat, because the paper is "too expensive".

People who think, that bitcoin will be a "value storage" just because it's rare are believing the same bullshit people believed often enough. In this case, the "tulip mania" jerks are right, bitcoin differs in no way from all the other "value storages" that came up in history and went down.

Bitcoin was always designed to be a currency and the existing limits were never thought to be forever.
I don't want to see bitcoin as the next tech bubble and imho a lot of the "next value storage" "gold 2.0" talk sounds fatally like all the bullshit you can hear in EVERY investment bubble.