About damn time.  Thanks AudenX.

If this actually takes off and doesn't suffer from nanny state meddling (oh no, you can't pay for guns with this! guns are evil!), it most certainly will reduce the long term growth of BTC.  Kill?  Nope.  But it will put one hell of a dent in it.  Such competition would make BTC more applicable to black market transactions and people who want to store wealth only they can touch.  Still a useful thing to have.  However, the value of that nestegg sitting behind your private key is based purely on speculation, just like fiat.  Some would rather just bury gold, guns and ammo.

This.  BTC got millions of people thinking about cryptocurrencies.  In that respect, it was a resounding success.  However, I agree that it will be replaced within a few years.  I'm not sure what will take its place, but it will feature more de-centralization, less susceptibility to KP injections and 51% attacks, and (most importantly) will be readily convertible to some useful form to give it a minimum level of value.  Currently, it requires more faith than fiat.  Time will tell.

Hmmm.  That would be a tremendous wall to sell through, but if it is sold through, confidence will be (temporarily) shattered.  Currently $50 is the mental safety-net.

Eh.  It's only disruptive if people adopt it en masse.  What do you think is more likely?  Western Union, Moneygram, MasterCard, Visa, Amazon, Ripple, etc. improving p2p money transfer, or BTC usurping all of the competition?  I used to be bullish on BTC, but giving it more thought, the value of this currency/commodity is too heavily tied to speculation and hype.  How many people just a few days ago were falling over themselves to say that $100 would never be broken again?  Honestly, I think what's more likely is that something similar to BTC and is redeemable for something of value (rather than dissipated watts in an ASIC) is the future.  If you think fiat requires a leap of faith, BTC requires an absolute acid trip.

Yeah and let's not forget Bitfloor shutting down.

Speak.  I've only been following BTC for a few months, but this much is obvious.  When you make bear predictions, heaps of evidence are required, and generally do nothing to convince the masses.  When you make bull predictions, well, it's like a coke fix for a cokehead.  At this point, we're talking about a currency backed by no gov't or tangible asset whose price is essentially dictated by a single exchange and the occasional media blip.  Cool heads will prevail.

Chances are the bank just lost patience with an account with so much inflow and outflow via wire transfer.  Oh joy.

Well, it's a currency backed by no government or hard asset whose price is dictated by a single exchange.  Thus, a thorough analysis must be heavily seasoned with mass psychology.  The answer to "what should the price be?" is "what does the other guy think?".  Should be interesting!

Books on Amazon that you can buy with bitc ... oh wait, never mind.

I have to admit, I thought it was unusual that one could transfer large quantities of USD to Bitfloor so quickly and easily, when it was a major PITA with the other exchanges.  This is one of the reasons I'm so disappointed to see BF vanish.  It was a no frills, no BS exchange.  Now we'll see how easy it is to pull money back out.  Hmm!

True.  If he didn't have much advance warning, then I would agree with you.

I've been caught up in this Bitfloor fiasco as well.  My primary complaint about Roman's handling of this situation (and I believe it is inexcusable) is that there was basically no advance warning of his intentions.  As a result, a lot of people were stuck with USD in their account.  Converting to BTC and switching exchanges would have made more sense.  This wasn't really an option given his timing.  He should have given people at least a week to make their move.  What a rotten deal.

A lot of the points you've made ring true.  My hunch is you will be proven right in the end.  These are strange times.  Any reasonable person knows a deflationary event is imminent, and the usual safe harbor (PMs) is being manipulated with naked shorts.  When you're the Fed and can short using printable currency, there is little to lose in the short term.  Will Bitcoins serve as a modern safe harbor from the bankers?  In the long term, I do not think they will.

Bitcoins are an absolutely fascinating financial instrument.  However, the fact that they are backed by nothing, not even a government, will play a leading role in its volatility.  Being backed by no government, Bitcoins must be readily convertible to some useful form to ensure long-term survival.  Faith will not suffice.  Faith is fiat and fiat is faith.  I believe this is where an alternate crypto currency will emerge.  The act of mining will produce a useful product which can be redeemed at a later time.  Redemption will destroy that particular unit of currency.  What form this product will take is anyone's guess.  I'd be surprised if someone wasn't working on this concept already.  In the very, very long term, I believe stored energy will be the next currency, but that is for another topic.

I'm also troubled by the fact that all exchanges look to Mt. Gox for pricing information.  This is problematic for many reasons.  We've seen the effect that DDOS has had.  What happens when the government of Japan seizes Mt. Gox's bank accounts over some trumped up charge, or worse yet, seizes the servers and never returns them?  I believe something like this is bound to happen.  What do you think will happen to the value of a Bitcoin?

Bravo, much appreciated!

This has been my first foray into investments over which I have active control.  I don't know about you guys, but it is both terrifying and exciting to think that with the right trades, your pile of bitcoins can either explode or vanish.  Or you can just stash them away in a cold storage wallet which can never be taken from you.  That's pretty cool when you think about it.  It is also disturbing to see the volatility resulting from widespread panic and criminal attacks on the bitcoin infrastructure.  I'm also disturbed by the lack of pricing information available when Gox is down.  Seriously .. the market is absolutely paralyzed without it.  Thankfully, there isn't nearly the kind of panic we saw before.  It seems like people are adjusting to life with DDOS.  Anyway, the current volatility makes its use as a bona-fide currency impractical since manufacturers generally don't buy capital, labor, materials, etc. in bitcoins.  What's clear is that this is definitely a work-in-progress and the bitcoin you see 5 years from now will look very different than the bitcoin you see today.  Probably much like the internet itself as it morphed from pure html to what we have now.

After all the speculation, hand waving, and so on you see over in the big boy forums, I think what is evident is nobody really has a solid pulse on what will happen in the next hour, day, month or year.  You read what the speculators have to say, and it reminds me of a broken clock being right twice a day.  Every bull has his day and every bear has his day.

Predicting where BTC/$ will be tomorrow is like predicting the weather.  In fact, I'd say its considerably harder to predict than the weather.  Tomorrow NK could launch nukes @ Japan.  What happens to BTC?  There could be a DDOS against all the exchanges that never lets up and basically cannot be mitigated.  What happens to BTC?  A security flaw, another hacked exchange, gov't regulation, another panic caused by some unforeseen factor, and so on are all distinct possibilities.  Hell, the people running each exchange could be threatened by hired guns.  If this really takes off, a lot of very powerful dynasties will be extremely agitated.  I think this will either be an unbelievable success story or a dismal failure .. lots of money will change hands in the next few months & years on these exchanges.  Grab your popcorn

Heh, I've noticed a trend on this site.  People falling over themselves to proclaim the smart trades they made (speculating).  I hear very little from people about the losses (realized or unrealized) they have sustained.  I'm guessing that a lot of people have taken a bath .. and must either take their losses and move on .. or sit on bitcoins that lost 2/3 of their value over the course of a few days.

I've been reading the "big boy" forums for a few weeks now.  The bears are really patting themselves on the back for their pessimism.  But I think the truth is that they were right for the wrong reasons.  The fundamentals looked solid: more accounts being created at the bitcoin sites and eroding confidence in fiat.  Their bearish predictions turned out to be true due to a vulnerability in TCP/IP and human psychology.  The bottom line is that a DDOS has caused a reset on the price discovery mechanism occurring globally.  I think that from here on, reliability and security will be more heavily weighed in price discovery.  Here's the problem - given an essentially unlimited supply on botnets, anything internet-based can be crippled.  This gives criminals a profound influence over pricing.  Not a good sign.

Hey guys, the name is Carl.  I guess I'm just like the rest of you .. intrigued by this new "currency" and watching my investment take an exciting and terrifying roller coaster ride the past few days.