Bitcoins are a modern-day nitvender. The price of bitcoins is no more related to economic fundamentals than was the price of the South Sea nitvender. There is no there there.
It is a mathematical fact that when the price of bitcoins goes to zero, this zero-sum game will have completed its circle. Every dollar of profit that anyone made trading bitcoins will be matched by the losses of other bitcoin traders.
We can laugh about the South Sea nitvender now, but it will be a long time before the gullible people who lose money on the bitcoin nitvender will laugh about their losses.
Eulogy made by Gary Smith
