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[i2amroy]

My visions of the grim, dark future say not to invest in Bitcoins.

My vision of the bright, happy future also says to not invest in bitcoins.

My vision of the beige, mostly-unbiased future says not to invest in Bitcoins.

[Fenrir]

There isn't much you can do with Bitcoins at the moment other than buy drugs, really.

Lies and defamation! You can also purchase alpaca socks.

[penguinofhonor]

My vision of the surreal, unpredictable future says to invest all your aquamarine rabbits into Bitcoins.

[FearfulJesuit]

Bauglir, have you considered creating an alternative to Bitcoins? My vision of the future is Randroids speculating on virtual udders.

[Fniff]

My vision of a future filled with zombies and nuclear warfare says to invest in fallout shelters and firearms. Also don't invest in bitcoins.

[Fenrir]

BitBunker: the new peer-to-peer, decentralized virtual crypto-shelter! It’s completely inflation proof, but, unfortunately, it lets in fluctuating amounts of radiation and occasionally fails completely. At least you can store drugs and alpaca socks in it!

[Sigulbard]

Why would you want to invest in such an unstable concept as digital currency? If you want to invest in something, buy gold or silver - signs show that the prices are only going to go up.

[Cthulhu]

Were you one of the founders or early adopters who produced a large number when the algorithm was fast, and then sold them off while the hype was making them valuable? If not, then you'll almost certainly lose money on them. Bitcoins aren't necessarily a bad concept, in theory, except that nobody really recognizes them as valuable (making them not valuable, because economics is mostly complicated tautologies), and the mechanism for producing them transformed them into a clear pyramid scheme.

There was no transformation.  A significant portion of the total supply of bitcoins (yes, there's a limit!  more on that later) was already mined and possessed before bitcoins were "released."  As of now somewhere around half of the bitcoins have never changed hands.  It was planned from the beginning.

That being said, it's not inflationary and I'm not sure it's a pump and dump.  As I mentioned before, there's a limit to the number of bitcoins that can exist (27 billion, I think?)  Once a bitcoin is "mined" that's permanent.  Bitcoins that get deleted or lost do not rejoin the heap, which means deleting your wallet is like firing gold into the sun.  Well, not really, since gold has value, but you get what I'm saying.

What this all means is that bitcoin is actually extremely deflationary.  There's two paths you can take on it, and I have a feeling the people owning that untouched supply are taking the non-speculative path.  You can buy coins low and sell high, but you'd get better odds at a slot machine and either way you'd be paying the mafia (one of the big consumers of bitcoins is the Russian mafia who uses it for money laundering, which helps keep it super-unstable) so you may as well head to the casino.

Alternatively, you can be the inventor or one of the first people to sign on, get a few million bitcoins and wait for bitcoin to become a prominent currency as it obviously will be (heh heh heh).  Then once it's all mined out and deflation sets in and an acre of land costs .00002BC, you bust out your millions and carve out your own Randroid Empire among the ruins of civilization.

[Flying Dice]

Why would you want to invest in such an unstable concept as digital currency? If you want to invest in something, buy gold or silver - signs show that the prices are only going to go up.

Why would you invest in worthless yellow rocks? Latinum is the way to go, my friend.

[Bauglir]

-SNIP-

Oh, you're right. Last I'd heard of them, the price had crashed due to several security failures of major trading sites, and I'd never heard about any kind of recovery. Probably selective media again. A story on Bitcoin problems is going to circulate in the general public better than one on how awesomely it's doing.

[penguinofhonor]

Psh, gold and silver are only worth anything because of the value people place on them. So what you should do is buy something cheap, then convince people it's valuable. Same thing, basically, but way cheaper to buy into.

Also, just so you guys know, I heard tin was going to go way up soon. If anyone needs some I've got it.

[Dutchling]

I got a chair.

A real lovely one I swear.

[Flying Dice]

It's even better if you can use what amounts to slave child labor to harvest your raw materials which you then subject to obscenely and artificially inflated prices. And by better I mean horrifying and morally repulsive.

[Cthulhu]

Oil futures seems like a good one to speculate, and when the prices go up everyone will just blame Obama.

[penguinofhonor]

You know, I heard Obama was making tin prices rise as well. That jerk.