@DreamOn -- I don't understand the above post... ?

@Sedit... and others...
You cannot counterfeit bitcoins and neither can any government entity. IHowever - governments can print off oodles of cash that dilutes the value and essentially taxes you via inflation. Printing money doesn't make for more wealth - it simply just redistributes the wealth already represented by the current cash....  "Inflation is taxation without representation" 

Gold isn't inherently valuable - nothing is inherently valuable. However, we place value on gold because it has some uses and it is rare - it's largest use is in "storing value" -- which is a strange concept. It isn't particularly useful for transactions, however. It would be a bitch to weight out a specific amount of gold and send it to someone for an item.

Bitcoin is valuable because it is useful.
It is useful because it aids transactions, like other currencies. It is merely a tool for exchange much like the dollar, and it is a tool for storing value - much like gold. Bitcoins are limited, and at some point will be much harder to get than gold.

Gold can and has been outlawed in the past. <== something to think about.
Bitcoins are useful because they can buy any product on the internet. They CAN buy gold/silver/Pt and other bullion, as well as every single product on amazon, be exchanged for almost any and all other currencies, and they also have the ability to make totally anonymous transactions and sales allowing for illicit material to be sold and bought more safely than ever before - especially online.

I'm sure other people could give a better explanation, but I think that touches a lot of good bases and gives a general idea of why it is useful, valuable, etc...
Like I said, read more about it.

I suspect that at least in next 4 years 1 bitcoin is > $500


The government will try to outlaw it.. which might cause some troubles...

Bitcoin has very good encryption. The addresses, etc can be sent to people via GPG or whatever else... I don't think that is an issue, even with things like wireshark, etc...
Just make sure you have a secure system...

Additionally it is open source - anyone can look at the source code so it doesn't matter how elusive the creator of it is, in my opinion.

Also it isn't based on any currency - it is just exchangeable for it because some people would rather have bitcoins than the USD, and others would rather have the USD instead of the bitcoins they have.

Where gold derives its value, or where anything derives it's value is the same as bitcoin in a lot of ways - in the ways it isn't, bitcoin is better I think....  So I do not see what your argument really is against their value? One thing that might not help bitcoin is that governments will not accept it for debts. That is the only reason why the other money is valuable, however...

Also I like the skepticism of bitcoin. When it comes to these sorts of things it is always good to have such a conversation -- but read as much as you can about it. I bet you will change your opinion and be in favor of it. I've tried to not like bitcoin, tried to find things wrong with it, etc... and the only things I can come up with is that:
1. It is too deflationary and might slightly inhibit transactions to a small extent -- according to F. A Hayek on a free market monetary system...
And... that is about it. lol

But yeah, if you can come up with a good argument why bitcoin is junk, or not that great... by all means let me know. It will probably save me money and time since I intend to get fairly invested in the bitcoin system.

Well yea, if you haven't already done that.
some wizards are past that though 

there are other e-currency formats, and virtual money will continue to flourish.
I saw it coming 12 years ago

Nice thoughts!

According to Thier's law, in the absence of legal tender laws, good money will drive out bad money. So this is why I think bitcoin will succeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law#Reverse_of_Gresham.27s_Law_.28Thiers.27_Law.29
It is a bit hard to understand.

Gold itself has no real value for anyone. The reason it is treated with such reverence is because it embodies a large quantity of labor... it takes a great deal of labor to locate and extract such a rare metal.

This is no different from Bitcoin... the bitcoins themselves have no real value, but they encapsulate a good deal of labor that went into "mining" them.

Both can be exchanged for other goods that took a similar quantity of labor to produce.

Well when the BTC market stabilizes it will be easy to do so, more so than it is now. But you already can buy gold for BTC and vice versa -- I am not sure how the people do it, but they do.

Also, Gold prices always have a slight markup if you want it shipped to the door since a company has to pay for shipping, and of course needs to make a profit to some extent..

Can you buy 1oz of gold at marketprice even using USD, and have it come to your door, etc, etc?

Can we keep the number of mentions of that site to a minimum, as it does provide services not necessarily legal within the police state of america.
Let's see how many people are searching for strange things on a site like this.

Once upon a time... There was this russian guy who was selling cold war tanks, AK-47s, depleted uranium, and coke; giving away free keys of coke with every tank! He would only ship to europe for some reason
Then there was that one guy, I forget his handle, he was selling counterfeit american dollars at half price within the US.

It is the association of what we do here with what they do there, that I don't like. We as a community (Largely) do not look very highly on purely commercial interests, although we do accept the frameworks laid before us as the reality within which we must live and thrive.

I mean what [silkroaders] are trying to do is not in our interests (being that spreading information is great, but mentioning thereby encouraging entry into illicit markets where [god forbid] real drugs are being shipped around the world isn't something we want among members). Most already know about it, yes, but I would discourage even going to the site for obvious reasons.

My opinions entirely. I don't want the publicity of the silken road.
OP related:
I tried to sell something on bitmit ... no one bought it, it was maybe half price of retail. Very discouraging.

Just an update... I've sold a bunch of stuff on bitmit. It is a great marketplace. Obviously no ebay, but it is a hell of a lot better then various other marketplaces. Getting quite a bit of different products on there too and more and more users/sellers/buyers.