Quote from: defxor on September 09, 2011, 06:31:34 PM

Quote from: the founder (FlexCoin) on September 09, 2011, 04:39:29 PM

Quote from: defxor on September 09, 2011, 04:22:00 PM

Because it's irrelevant?

No man... it's not irrelevant... it's the basis of the entire experiment. If it falls to pennies or lower... it's game over for all of us...

I think you've misunderstood Bitcoin. Completely.

This price of BTC is irrelevant to its function as a currency. If you believe it to have been an investment, that's your gamble.

Spot on. The role of a currency is to be both a long-term store of value, and a short term medium of exchange. To be a store of value it needs to have stable prices, and to be a medium of exchange it needs to be easy to use and exchange.

If it's worth 0.01 US cent, it doesn't matter, as long as it retains that value over a long period of time and people use it in exchanges.

Right now we have neither:

The money supply is inflating, last I checked, by around +37% a year (as of a few days ago; obviously that number will converge to zero as the months go by, but 37% inflation is still significant). At the same time, Bitcoin is getting all kinds of positive and negative publicity, resulting in fluctuating demand. Right now we're in a deflationary period as a result of all of the bad publicity. This rapid inflationary pressures and fluctuating deflationary pressures means the currency can't hold a stable price. Security issues are also at the forefront as no significant third-party solutions have come forth and I haven't seen much commitment from the developers. In the future when inflation dies down and demand stops fluctuating so wildly, we'll see significant price stabilization.

As a medium of exchange, it's also weak: there's little to actually buy and the services available to facilitate those transactions are untrustworthy at best, outright frauds at worst. Basically what we have is a bunch of lone techies writing code in their basement, not professional companies creating products; this does not mean we won't have reliable facilitators in the future, but the fact is we just don't have any now (in my opinion).

Bitcoin isn't useful as a currency now. The most investment and focus by third parties is in BTC mining and exchange right now, as is to be expected and as is necessary, as developed mining and exchange is absolutely necessary for the short, medium, and long term prospects. When the economy has developed enough to allow convenient BTC purchases in supermarket stores I think Bitcoin will be just about 'ready' to move from a mining-based, long-term investment to an exchange-focused currency.