What is your take on bitcoins?

[RandomGuy]

I've been following them for years and used to talk about them a lot with a good friend when we worked together-(david) dtmcnamara on here. He's an expert on the matter but for me it came down to how volatile it was to external forces at the time.
For example, that "theft" that happened a few years ago completely tanked the economy- someone reported their computer got hacked and lost $500k- people went crazy online. I saw them go from like 30 USD per BTC to like 11USD, that's when I lost faith in it. An isolated incident of an independent wallet being stolen because of failed safeguards outside the scope of the bitcoin. You'd figure someone with a wallet full of 500k in paper money would have at least spent money on protecting it- why wouldn't this apply to virtual currency? The news distributed the story as a weakness in the bitcoin system and trust fell. This caused panic/hysteria and the currency got weaker. In this day and age, where panic can be manufactured via the media, I don't know how viable the bitcoin can/will be. What's your take on it?

Those of you who have been watching the news lately may have seen what's going on. Any how it's pretty freaking insane. Good news is that it's pretty much too late to become a miner/farmer if you aren't already established given increasing difficulty levels.



For those of you who aren't familiar, this will get you up to speed: Bitcoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some reputable stats: Bitcoin Charts - Blockchain.info
Bitcoin Market Capitalization
transactions per day: Bitcoin Number Of transactions Per Day

Etc, etc.

One bitcoin is proof of computational work done- it's a real unit. It's not representative like the USD is, after the gold standard. A bitcoin can not exist if the computational work was not performed. There are a bunch of other details that you'll find after doing a quick google.

Do you think the bitcoin can make it? Why or why not? I think it's the ideal currency without the layer of politics that is usually associated. From a technology standpoint, this gives incentives to innovations in hardware, which will essentially improve our quality of life. It is also more free from external manipulation due to the decentralization (the currency itself vs common perception which can be manipulated unfortunately eg. The Fed)