Quote from: BrightAnarchist on February 05, 2014, 12:58:55 AM

It seems that opinions on Bitcoin are primarily divided into two categories:

(1) BULLS: People who grok Bitcoin, and thus are perma-bulls

(2) BEARS: People who do not grok Bitcoin, and thus are perma-bears

I would like to propose a third, new, much rarer category:

(3) OPTIMISTIC BEARS: People who grok Bitcoin and believe in its future, yet acknowledge that, at present, Bitcoin and especially alt-coins are still in the midst of a major speculative bubble that must deflate before the next growth phase can begin.

If you're in category 3, then please join me in this thread. Welcome to the home of the optimistic bears. I would like to hear from you.

I am a category 3 before I am a category 1 or 2.

Bitcoin's valuation has gotten way ahead of schedule and now the fight is on to keep the price relatively stabilised in relation to the organic market forces pressing down on it. This means that I think Bitcoin should go down quite a lot, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will. Yes Bitcoin is overinflated, yes it should correct a lot yet but regardless of what happens, crypto currencies are here to stay. It may not be Bitcoin that emerges as King a decade or so down the line just as nobody had heard of Google or Facebook as the internet first exploded onto the mainstream, but I would suspect that Bitcoin has quite a long road in front of it yet, which means it's valuation has plenty time to grow and expand. The two major anti-US nations have taken an anti-Bitcoin stance, but most crucially, the US itself seems to be accepting it for now and is now moving to regulate it's use and bring it into the fold of establishment finance. For this reason, I am not 'optimistic' about Bitcoin. Yes, I think it has huge potential for yet more future speculative gains but I don't see how it is going to contribute to human freedom or prosperity in anyway whatsoever. Infact, quite the opposite. Bitcoin seems to me like a prototype for the 'Great Beast's' global digital currency. Every single transaction, on the ledger forever, and despite what many like to think, 100% trackable, forever. There is also an exponentially growing blockchain which will soon be unfeasible for home computer users to manage which will result in corporations springing up as Bitcoin intermediaries, serving as Bitcoin 'banks' and even central banks.

Bitcoin is not freedom. It is anti-freedom that has been welcomed in through the back door by a largely 'libertarian' leaning geek fraternity. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Satoshi Nakamoto was simply a code name for a team of NSA elite coders who have created the thing to begin with. Considering the undeveloped (hidden) global tracking potential that Bitcoin provides for, Bitcoin would be a genial initiative of an intelligence agency representing a political entity who is fast moving to have complete hegemony of control over global information traffic. Especially if that technology were 'marketed' most to subversive groups or those heavily involved in black market activity who aren't paying their dues to the 'Evil Empire'.

If I I could hit a Bitcoin kill switch, I would press down hard on that motherfucker, just as soon as I had moved my funds out of Bitstamp of course. Since I don't have access to such a switch, if Bitcoin is going to happen it is going to happen and if I can make a tidy profit on it then I want to make a tidy profit on it.