[antonb2011]

"The Next Cryptocurrecy" is correct and is the phrase that tells you everything you need to know. The proponents of Bitcoin try to pass it off as being "As Good as Gold". However, unlike gold, whose supply is limited on Earth, and cannot be expanded without radical measures (asteroid mining or nuclear fusion), you can make as many new cryptocurrencies as you want. I might also have a couple of hash functions up my sleeve, whose solutions are difficult to compute, and so are "limited" in supply. Limited, that is, until someone comes up with next ByteCoin, CryptoCoin, ScamCoin etc.

Additionally, a shallow market is always a perfect pump-and-dump opportunity. Say you have a stock (or Bitcoin) that only has a volume of $100,000 a day. Then, if you're a small hedge fund and have about $20,000,000 devoted to small cap growth, or emerging market currencies, and your investment mandate allows you a temporary tactical deviation, you can buy the WHOLE supply of an asset for several WEEKS sending the price through the roof. When the crowd catches on and starts pumping money into your asset you exit the market and allow it to crash. Is it legal? No. Does it happen all the time? YES!

[codeulike]

A currency needs a community. Bitcoin has a community. Anyone that 'makes as many new crypocurrencies as they want' will quickly find they dont have a community.

[Drakim]

While what you say is true, it's also possible to arbitrarily declare another metal "the new gold" just like it's possible to make a new cryptocurrency.

[craigyk]

No it is not possible. All the possible alternative metals are already known and traded commodities. Gold also has many properties that people find desirable in a store of value: it is stable (resistant to oxidation), relatively rare, workable (fairly soft), etc. A new hash is for the most part equivalent to the last in the ways that count.