Quote from: StewartJ on January 26, 2012, 12:39:04 AM

Quote from: molecular on January 25, 2012, 11:13:59 PM

Quote from: BTCurious on January 25, 2012, 09:35:26 PM

Please explain.

It's a very complicated metaphor.

There are about 1,800 living species of starfish that occur in all the world's oceans, including the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian as well as in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean (i.e., Antarctic) regions. This is analogous to the bitcoin community, which has a few thousand individual active members from all reaches of the world. Starfish occur across a broad depth range from the intertidal to abyssal depths (>6000 m). Bitcoin members come from everywhere, the high-class regions, down to the deepest lowest depths of the internet (Place SA somewhere along here to your liking).

Starfish are among the most familiar of marine animals and possess a number of widely known traits, such as regeneration and feeding on mussels. Bitcoin is able to recuperate after devastating blows, such as a half-a-million theft, a major hack of the largest exchange, and a massive bubble. Broadly speaking, starfish are opportunistic feeders, with several species having specialized feeding behavior, including suspension feeding and specialized predation on specific prey. The bitcoin community is well aware of its manipulators, scammers, profiteers, etc, as well as specialized applications in niche-areas.

The tropical Crown of Thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) are voracious predators of coral throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Other starfish, such as members of the Asterinidae, are frequently used in developmental biology. Bitcoin is used in applications where people need certain goods otherwise unreachable. Other applications include development of new infrastructure and technological concepts.

The Asteroidea occupy several important roles throughout ecology and biology. Sea stars, such as the Ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) have become widely known as the example of the keystone species concept in ecology. Bitcoin will become very important in our future economy. It will become widely known as the keystone concept upon which the new world market will be built.

I hope this clears things up? To be honest, I did expect this to be mostly obvious when I posted the picture.