I decided a while ago that arguing against the "bitcoin has no problems" crowd was futile: people are too enamored with the idea to see problems like this until they happen.
The Bitcoin "community" is an emergent, distributed boiler room. They could just as easily be selling pink clam shells, tulips, or shares in an insolvent company that had a business plan to make pool cleaning agents. The underlying commodity doesn't matter. What does matter is that the widely disbursing the underlying commodity early gave them enough of a following, including folks who are savvy enough to think that they are the ones getting rich off the marks (a classic element of fraud), to attempt to convince other people that there is actually intrinsic value in what they are selling.
Every article about Bitcoin which makes it to HN -- yes, including ones in mainstream publications -- is in effect a PR hit planted by a new breed of the old boiler room scam.
If you want to view BTC as a currency, it doesn't look that way... IMO.
BTC appears entirely dysfunctional as currency.
"currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency
BTC is neither generally accepted nor does it have the STABLE VALUE needed to become more accepted as a medium of exchange. And last element is something the Bitcommunists just utterly miss. Because a currency is medium, just a means, it will not function unless its value is stable. Not decreasing OR increasing.
Whenever the BTC shills tout the increasing value, they've accomplished the old "switch-a-roo" from currency to speculative commodity.
But currencies are also dual-purposed as commodities (c.f., forex traders).
"Folks, in the grown-up world, trades are unwound when the market malfunctions. --Jeff Garzik, bitcoin core dev team"
In the grown-up world, currency is controlled by governments, the financial industry is regulated, and money cannot be transferred large distances anonymously. The whole sales pitch of BitCoin is that it is free of all this control. Invoking "the grown-up world" to describe BitCoin is absurd.
So true.
The main reason why Bitcoin can't be considered grown-up is because there aren't guys like Soisson showing up dead.
No they don't. I think the FATF would have words with countries that allowed this to happen.
Mt Gox Exchange =/= BTC Currency Nasdaq Exchange =/= USD Currency
If the community wants rollbacks when transactions aren't "fair," what's the point of BitCoin again?
Likewise the freedom from government intervention that is the point of Bitcoin does not ensure freedom from government intervention in trading platforms built upon it.
Not that I don't expect problems to emerge with Bitcoin itself...
Especially when the exchange is just a spot market - speculation in futures and options wouldn't undermine the viability of the currency as an actual means of exchange in the way that this situation will.
... it ain't credible.
On the other hand, it sounds like they would have a great career path at the federal reserve...
I don't mean to be too harsh, but I can't see any value in this part of your comment. It will only possibly lead to derailment of this discussion.
"We must do something, {random} is something, therefore we must do {random}" is generally regarded as a fallacy.