[NOT POSTED] One of the reasons that makes non-technical people to be wary of bitcoin may be in fact the religious fervor of many bitcoiners and their exaggerated claims for the future value of bitcoin. Perhaps because of the old adage, ˜if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't". That adage is based on countless examples of scams and bubbles. Brazil just went through a huge pyramid scam called TelexFree (which may have involved more money that has been invested wolrdwide into bitcoin yet). Some bitcoiners unfortunately talk just like TelexFree enthusiasts. They had their glowing movies and ads, and their "experts" proving by A+B that it could only go to the moon and beyond etc.. Bitcoin is still much smaller here than TelexFree was, but skeptics sometimes call it "the TelexFree of the nerds". The reaction of people to my presence in the thread is telling. In technical forums, people whose views are way off the general consensus, even after seeing other people's arguments, are generally ignored. So why is there such intense interest and hostility focused on my person? That is normal behavior in religious or nationalist forums, because the believers are sustained by faith rather than logic, and the mere knowledge that there are stubborn non-believers could make people question their faith. The community of bitcoin believers behaves like a religious community in many other ways. It eschews traditional economic and finance forums, insetead it has its own forums, news sources, and meetings where everybody is a believer; so those who are there can have the impression that they have already conquered the world. Bitcoin believers assume that any opportunist who poses as a "bitcoin prophet" is a saint and a genius, and those who criticize him can only be idiots or servants of the Devil. See Shrem, Karpeles, Vessenes, Ver, and dozens of other scammers and opportunists --- and Danny Brewster, the most glaring example of this "santification by bitcoin" process. --------- I am afraid that you are getting from those sources a very distorted view of reality. Indeed bitcoin has many of the attributes of a religious sect, more that a technological or economic revolution. For one thing, bitcoin believers assume automaticsally that any opportunist who poses as a "bitcoin missionary" is a saint and a genius, and anyone who criticizes him or his projects must be an idiot or a servant of the Devil. And they will give him all their money, without even reading his prospectus or doing simple math; and defend him strenuously even after he is unmasked. Danny Brewster , the runaway former CEO of Neo & Bee,is the most glaring example of that "beatification by bitcoin". Compare for example the CoinDesk's article below about Danny Brewster, where his reddit posting is given more weight than all the other reports and testimonials, with the posting by his chief former employees on reddit: http://www.coindesk.com/neo-bee-ceo-breaks-silence-alleged-bitcoin-fraud/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23cjd9/the_full_picture_of_former_neo_bee_employees/ Up until yesterday there were still people in this forum denying the media articles on N&B as propaganda, and insisting that Danny was the only good guy in the affair and a victim of powerful enemies of bitcoin. Even now there are people saying that the situation is "not clear" and Danny must be given the benefit of the doubt. (CoinDesk has now published another article reporting the employees's post, but the reporter is apparently are still reluctant to admit the ugly truth.) Thus it was that no bitcoiner laughed at Roger Ver's "certification" of MtGOX's solvency, or Antonopoulos's "audit" of Bitstamp, or at Demeester's endorsement of Neo & Bee, and so on. And I just saw an announcement of another bitcoiner's event where Charlie Shrem is guest of honor. Amazing... Although I think I can distinguish bitcoin from the bitcoiners, these news do not help me become less skeptical of bitcoin, either... :( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Recalling, the MtGOX theft alone has been estimated as 600,000 BTC minimum, and there are about 12,000,000 BTC in existence. So the theft was about 5% of all the bitcoins in existence, thus (as @rpietila notes) more than 2% of all the existing bitcoins per year. At the time, the heist was valued 500 million US$. Could anyone provide the corresponding numbers for bank and credit card theft? I found one webpage claiming that credit card fraud costs 5 billion US$ per year worldwide. Can't be that low -- (Please let's not stray off to inflation, taxes, etc.. The issue being discussed, from the start, is security against theft in the usual sense of the word. If you prefer, "theft with not even the bogus excuse of common good.") Come to think of it, MtGOX may have been the largest single hacking theft of all time, not just the largest [i]bitcoin[/i] theft. I cannot even imagine how hackers could steal 300 million old-fashioneed dollars from a company. Surely, MtGOX must be the largest [i]unsolved[/i] hacking theft, and the largest theft where not a penny has been recovered. By the way, I have been looking hard for a bitcoin-based or bitcoin-related venture that could be considered a sound investment at this time, with no success. Bitpay may be sound, I have not looked at their finances yet. Bitcoin itself, and funds like SMBIT, are losing value and there is no way to tell if and when they will recover. There are hundreds of ventures that are obviously scams or created by incompetent opportunists. Even mining, from what I have read, seems to be profitable only for very large and carefully engineered installations; and only if the BTC price does not fall much further. But now I have found ONE bitcoin venture that is all profit, absolutely zero risk, and has a proven market of hundreds of millions: bitcoin theft. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [quote author=niothor link=topic=178336.msg6261338#msg6261338 date=1397718730] The question is... what does "succeeding" mean? And there everybody is having different opinions. For a few it's already a success. [/quote] For me, "success" means it will be used for many years as a currency for a substantial fraction of legal internet trade by common people because they find it is better (chaper, safer, faster, simpler, whatever) than the traditional alternatives. Not because one has a stash of old bitcoins to spend, not to show support for "the cause", not for tax evasion, corruption, illegal trade, etc. That is in fact the kind of success that is needed to justify the expectations of its future value. If it does not succeed in this way, it will not be worth the fortune that its investors expect, it will not be a good store of value --- and it will not make the world better. The technical aspects had been fully demonstrated already by 2012 or before, so there is no "scientific" reason for continuing the "experiment". If other coins succeed using some of its ideas, that will be great, but I would not call that a "success" for BTC (just as the nuclear-powered airplane was not a "success" even though it may have produced some useful knowledge).