[jval]

Sorry, I think the legitimate transactions idea is actually one of the stronger parts of this piece.

> As long as there is a large enough community of people who want to use it to transfer value for any reason, it'll continue to sustain itself.

That's precisely the problem.

A community of speculators will only remain stable or increase in number where the price of the asset continues to grow. In the case of Bitcoin, the price can only grow if legitimate transactions increase, or if more people speculate. With every increase in price the number of people willing to speculate decreases, to the point where you run out of greater fools to sell the asset onto, causing a crash.

That means that an increase in legitimate transactions is really the only way to sustainably grow the value of the network, because it is the only method resistant to falls in price.