[kristofferR]

BitCoin is not a money-making scheme, it's just an attempt at creating a new digital international currency. It is not marketed as a scheme and it doesn't promise any returns in the future.

However, the ironical thing about starting a new currency is that the value of it is determined by the trust people have in it. Since Bitcoin is new and unproven, the trust is quite low. Until it is trusted it won't have real value, but a lot of people won't trust it until it has real value. It's a chicken and egg problem.

By investing in Bitcoins you are investing in the belief that the currency will gain in popularity. It actually is no different from investing in a company at an early stage. By investing early before something is proven the risks are higher - but so are the potential rewards.

The people who invested 50K in Facebook early are rich now. Those who invest 50K in Facebook today won't see anything close to the return the early investors did, even with the same investment. A lot of people lost their investment by investing in some other social network instead of Facebook. This is just like any other high risk/high reward investment - you invest on your belief that something will succeed.