Quote from: benjamindees on May 14, 2012, 05:07:10 AM

Quote from: zhoutong on May 13, 2012, 01:02:13 PM

I failed at one thing though, that is generating value for the society. Bitcoinica did create a place for people to trade more efficiently and provide liquidity to the market. However, speculation is a zero-sum game (or negative-sum, strictly saying). I know there can be many justifications for Bitcoinica's value, but all of them are against my intuition and values.

Quote from: Gavin Andresen on May 13, 2012, 02:04:26 PM

Good luck-- I share your view that coming up with better ways of playing zero-sum games is not the way to make the world a better place.

I have to say, this really is total fail.

Voluntary trade is absolutely not a zero-sum game. Everyone benefits. And, in the real economy, efficient and complex trade requires price stability, something that Bitcoin didn't have before Bitcoinica. Stabilizing the Bitcoin price is a huge accomplishment. It builds a foundation for the creation of immense value going forward. I have no doubt that this will become a textbook example of speculation working for the benefit of an entire economy, as it should in a truly free market. I almost can't even imagine what would make you think otherwise.

It's amazing to me the number of people in this community who joined what Satoshi billed as a "decentralized currency," only to completely fail to understand what that meant.

This isn't an investment. It isn't a payment processing network. It isn't a ponzi scheme. It's an economy. And, granted, right now it's an economy built on drugs and knick-knacks and web services. That's okay. Rome wasn't built in a day. Tides turn slowly. There are milestones that must be reached before Bitcoin can become what it was intended to be. And, granted, Bitcoin is different things to different people. That's fine too. But, really, I would expect a much broader view to be expressed by some of the people most responsible for Bitcoin's success.

Because that's what I see in the Bitcoin economy right now, success. It might not feel like it. The price isn't shooting up spectacularly. Mining is more difficult than it used to be. There is little innovative new software development. Bitcoin services are under attack. But believe me, it's there. It's in the 10,000 BTC loan recently fulfilled. It's in the solidly stable value despite 30%+ inflation. It's in the immense network difficulty and the delivery of FPGA mining cards. It's in the total resiliency of Bitcoin in the face of immense public and government scrutiny, while still challenging an immoral and corrupt fiat currency regime that has failed the world.

Bitcoin is clearly an idea whose time has come. I know that backlash is growing. I know that obstacles remain. But don't give up before seeing it happen. Every day that Bitcoin exists, it succeeds.

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