You only lost money if you sold your bitcoins. If you bought bitcoins at the instant before the last crash, you'd still have more than doubled your money even now after the $30 drop. Bitcoin may crash to $1 tomorrow; who cares? The real question is where will Bitcoin be a year from now, and 10 years from now?
I don't think I can have 100% confidence that I would be able to cash out of bitcoins in an efficient manner 10 years down the line, so you have to discount for that risk (whether it be technology, new regulation, etc).
It doesn't have to be "revealed as a sham", it has to simply not be worthwhile to continue using. I see the speculators as being far more harmful to its long term viability than any nation-state.
As counterexample I bought bitcoins just before the previous crash. I haven't sold them an I kept them for nearly two years an I recently sold them with better profit then I could get anywhere besides actual casino.
I don't quite understand the reasoning here -- it seems like you're advocating a long-term buy and hold approach with bitcoins, based solely on the fact that they've recovered from every crash thus far? While bitcoins certainly have a lot going for them as a currency, I think it's the "bitcoins will keep going up, buy the dips" mentally of the true believers that makes this sound like a bit of a tulip craze.
I'm not advocating buying and holding bitcoins necessarily. I'm saying short-term buying and selling of bitcoins in an attempt to outsmart the market is a bad idea. If you're going to buy, do it because you think bitcoins are valuable over the long term, or because you want to pay for something with bitcoins. Otherwise, don't buy.
You could say the same re the stock market about various swings etc
In my opinion the current volatility is more a sign of the immaturity of the investors rather than the underlying concept being flawed (many markets are conceptually flawed and absurd from an independent viewpoint however human psychology maintains some weird interest in them that keeps them afloat)
The current volatility is clearly a bubble and the best explanation that I like is that all these computer nerds across the world who haven't been involved with stock markets before have dropped their cash on bitcoins and facilitated the bubble and are unaware of the law of bubbles; that is; that they pop
The stock market has at least some value in the equity owned, bitcoins are the ultimate castle in the air investment. That doesn't mean people shouldn't use them, but they're a pretty poor investment.
Bitcoins have at least some value on the Deep Web, the stock market is the ultimate castle in the air investment. That doesn't mean people shouldn't use it, but it's a pretty poor investment.
I continue to watch the Wall Street bubble unfold, fascinated, popcorn at the ready. In the end it'll be like sending herds of cattle through a cheese grater.
