Quote from: slush on October 25, 2011, 09:27:29 AM

Quote from: P4man on October 25, 2011, 08:31:18 AM

Bitcoin speculation brings no profit, its a zero sum game. whatever you win, someone else loses.

It's simply a wrong statement. There are not only speculators on the market, but also merchants

The amount of actual trade by merchants in the bitcoin economy is completely neglectable compared to the amount of speculation.

If you read my other posts, you would have noticed I fully realize the value of speculation for merchants as long as the trade volume by speculation doesnt completely dwarf the actual economic activity. What we are seeing now in bitcoin is almost exclusively speculation, and the overwhelming majority of that doesnt benefit anyone (other than the speculator that placed the right bets, at the expense of the speculator that made the wrong ones). All of that is no profit to bitcoin, its a net loss because of the excessive volatility it creates .

Any buys or sells by speculators from merchants cashing out or to customers cashing in, those are valuable. Speculator to speculator transactions, which is like 99.9%, are not.