[antiscam]

As you'll see from my comment history, I was playing with significant money in Bitcoin early on. I have at least paper gains that are quite satisfying. Nothing I'm saying is personal or is based on any kind of jealousy. It's weird of you to assume that it is.

[jnbiche]

I call BS here absent a Bitcoin signature proving your supposed ownership of "significant" Bitcoins. If anything is weird, it's that someone who was supposedly interested enough in Bitcoin to buy or mine a significant amount "early on" has spent the vast majority of your past umpteen comments bashing Bitcoin. I think it's sour grapes, and it surprises me that so many on HN, who cheer on every Instagram knock-off that's sold for millions of dollars, are so bitter toward the person or persons who invented and built a truly revolutionary technology that has the potential to vastly change the way we do business.

[antiscam]

I'm not "bitter" at Satoshi Nakamoto, or really at anyone. I'm trying to do what I can, as I have from the beginning, to prevent people from falling for a scam. I'm not alone in doing this, and many other good analysts are doing the same thing. Is it worthwhile to try to apply arbitrary, amateur, and frankly embarrassingly bad psychology to all of them?

I sign onto most of what is written here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_ch...

[Andrew_Quentin]

It is unfair of jnbiche to close discussion by simply saying sour grape, but you seem to be too determined - maybe even evangelical looking at your nick - perhaps its something to do with leftist ideology?

In any event, the article raises two points.

1 - the currency is deflationary.

I'd argue that it is an inherently stable currency no different than gold. Many economists may say that a hard currency is not a good basis for an economy, but many economists say it is. That includes Hayek who won a Nobel for his theory of how best to allocate resources.

So to say that bitcoin will fail because it is deflationary is at best an opinion. You're free to hold it but that hardly makes bitcoins a scam.

2. Something better may come along.

That is basically saying bitcoins may fail, therefore it is a scam. In that case, most of the companies YC funds are a scam. They too disproportionately reward the founder and the first employees. You may say but they create a hard product of value or offer a service. Firstly, I'd say bitcoins is a product. It is not tangible, it is only 0s and 1s, but it is a product created out of applied mathematical theories and formulas and computational power. I'd also say it is a service for obvious reasons.

Even assuming you disagree with the latter points, lets go back to the YC funded company. Lets say they create something like google - a service - facebook - a service - wordpress - a product. Lots of people invest in these - making the founder and first employees rich beyond means - then something better comes along. Are you suggesting google is a scam? Oh but google has value. Say who? It provides a service - so does bitcoin.