Ask HN: Will Bitcoin crash?

But you have to ask yourself under what circumstances could that happen. Bitcoin cannot be "shorted" which is the main reason for that happening in the real world.

What if many people were to need to sell their bitcoins for example if a bank in a major country decided to call in all its loans. Again as we have seen with the Cyprus Crisis you'd be better off keeping your bitcoin rather than selling it.

It's hard to see how a crash could occur without there being a major external factor influencing the decision to sell large quantities of bitcoin.

Even if a government was to declare it illegal, there would be nothing they could do to enforce it. Wallets are private and encrypted, and the blockchain means that no government could grab your coin.

I think it's more than proved it's worth, I think the price can only go up because normal currency is so open to abuse by governments - see Cyprus again.

Lastly,one other factor that could affect the price, is damage to the internet in some form - restricting access or the ability to buy or sell.

It's the same as a run on the banks. It happens when the bank has lent out too much money - money that it doesn't have. When people try to withdraw their actual money they put in, it leads to the bank going belly up because they actually created money out of thin air.

I think this is a big difference with Bitcoin and a reason why it will survive the inevitable ups and downs and stick around for the long term.

As a proof of concept, bitcoin is a huge win for anarchists and libertarians everywhere. So in that sense, I don't think that it's original author really cares.

I think that if it does "crash" the crash will be caused by regulatory pressure, or it will live to see the end of bitcoins being issued in whole.

EDIT: In the short term, I would not be surprised if the currencies value takes a sharp drop.