I'm sorry but bitcoin has zero intrinsic value. Just like fiat. The only thing that makes it valuable is the supporting economy of goods and services that can be traded for bitcoin. Growing a bubble is not going to strengthen it. And there is a lot of bubble mentality on this forum. Like this post:
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3713.msg52668#msg52668If bitcoin continues to go up in value without the bitcoin economy following, it will finally crash. And if the mass market learns that bitcoin is another "beanie babies", it will never become a global medium of exchange. It will remain a toy for geeks.
Agreed. And that's almost become one of my mantras: it's not about mining.
This most recent wave of slashdotting (and Security Now'ing) has brought a lot of mining activity and interest in mining, but I've been disappointed that forum posts about interesting new bitcoin businesses were notably absent. In the past, we would see a flurry of new posts to the
We Accept Bitcoins thread (now
en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade) and the Marketplace forum. Not as much activity.
If bitcoin is to survive, it needs a wealth of goods and services available, in multiple countries. Bitcoin cannot exist without the bitcoin economy.
As a new bitcoiner today one of the first mystery's for me was...why is a bitcoin worth so much when there is very little commerce to back it up?, where is the demand coming from? and how is that demand sustainable when the bitcoin economy has so very little need of bitcoins to function...as a fundamental investor and keen chart watcher i just cant see the current exchange rate as being sustainable, the bitcoin economy needs some substance..needs some fundamental drivers.