[olalonde]

> All bitcoin has done so far is make the people with as little as $50 to spare (in 2011, 2012) into rich people. The rest of us in recession hit Europe have merely been screwed by it. I'm not saying it will crash or won't, but it's promoted more inequality than most other instruments.

Distributing a brand new decentralized currency is a hard problem. I think Bitcoin did a pretty good job with its mining reward mechanism. Also, it's not "all" Bitcoin has done. Would you say "all" Paypal has done is make Peter Thiel and co rich?

> and saying "the value of the bitcoin economy is $5bn" or whatever is disingenuous. Economies are measured by the FLOW of money - the gdp, not the STOCK - the total value of the money supply in a different currency. The amount of money changing hands is what matters - and afaik, that's miniscule in comparison.

When people quote Bitcoin's market cap they generally do so to illustrate how tiny Bitcoin is compared to USD or other currencies. The fact that it is still so small is an argument people use to justify its rising price. If anything, using a lower figure is what would be disingenuous.