[6d0debc071]

If bitcoin circulation is, in practice, much lower than it's generally believed to be -

“We isolated all the large (≥ 50,000 Bitcoins) transactions which were ever recorded in the system, and analyzed how these amounts were accumulated and then spent. We discovered that almost all these large transactions were the descendants of a single large transaction involving 90,000 Bitcoins which took place on November 8th 2010, and that the subgraph of these transactions contains many strange looking chains and fork-merge structures, in which a large balance is either transferred within a few hours through hundreds of temporary intermediate accounts, or split into many small amounts which are sent to different accounts only in order to be recombined shortly afterwards into essentially the same amount in a new account.”

- Dorit Ron and Adi Shamir, Quantitative Analysis of the Full Bitcoin Transaction Graph.

Then the perceived value and the actual value would be off significantly.

So, while I might not phrase it in quite as strong terms as the person you're responding to does, I do find reason to be somewhat cautious about the whole enterprise.

[simondlr]

Don't recall who said it, but powerful disruptive innovations are overhyped in the short term but under-hyped in the long term.

That's how I feel about Bitcoin. Circulation might not be a lot, and signs probably show that is not a lot, but it is disruptive. You also have to consider that perceived value is always reckoned into the 'actual' price. It depends on what market theories you ascribe to, but it is generally accepted that current prices reflect the market's capability to guess (and judge) futuer value. So, perceived value is often difficult to 'divorce' from the actual value, especially in the case with something like Bitcoin, where it is seen as both an asset and currency.

Another thing is the continuing trend of providing off-chain transactions (through companies such as Coinbase en Inputs.io).

[i_am_dead]

Things have changed since 2010.

[6d0debc071]

Study wasn't done in 2010. That's just when that transaction shell game showed up from the perspective of the study. Do you have an up to date statistical analysis of the bitcoin transaction record to share?