If I can buy a ring of bitcoin, and propose to my girlfriend with it, then bitcoin is like gold. If I can't, then your argument fails.
I wonder if I can embed a private key inside a ring. Then it really would be a ring of bitcoin.
Take one of your coins, then do the ring from a coin thing (I've seen an article on wiki-how or something.).
It isn't that Bitcoin was designed poorly. The deflation theory was bad, but the other problems, that have to do with mining were unforeseen. Satoshi didn't think that GPU's would end up being used to mine BTC, and that is where these problems are coming from.
What problems are related to GPU (or mining in general)?
IMHO GPU's turned a project like Bitcoin (a decentralized currency) and turned it into a gaining investment. GPU's gave way to farming, and thus gave way to an enhanced deflationary symptom. Without GPU's, I personally don't think we'd be in the situation we are in now.
$18k in electric bills per day, with an average loss of 25% per coin produced by miners, that could otherwise be used to purchase bitcoins? You think that it's bad for Bitcoin that up to $540k a month flows out of the system to pay electric bills? Are you suggesting *gasp* that miners should put that money toward supporting Bitcoin by purchasing them for less than they mine them for rather than hoping for speculators and idealistic white knights to continually keep the ship afloat?