Would anyone care to comment on the recent Mt Gox hack n' crash?

Personally, I'm thinking that this very bad. The currency won't look as good the mainstream, and I'm anticipating panic sells as soon as the exchanges get up and running again. I'm agnostic as to whether Bitcoin will die or not though...

The obvious extra question is:

"If you think it's so great, how come you're not using it?" Unless the sales girl's enjoyable life includes selling the machine she's in to disinterested customers.

people on the bitcoin forums saying that the dollar/euro will collapse

Lots of people (fans of bitcoin or not) take that as a given. And if you do assume "fiat money is doomed, doomed!" then why wouldn't something like bitcoin become the world's reserve currency?

The euro has its problems, but if the dollar ever becomes worthless then the only useful currencies will be ammunition, canned food, and sex.

Weirdly, though I think that bitcoins will succeed (and accordingly have some) I don't think Calacanis' article is well-founded. To focus just on the points I feel I can judge with some merit:

Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.

I don't think this is true. Shutting down of all legitimate currency exchanges would tend to increase the barrier to investment by legitimate investors and be likely to decrease interest in Bitcoins. Anecdote: I would get less interested in bitcoins if this happened. Also, a focused government campaign against it might succeed in branding it as evil in public eyes, again reducing interest. I do recognize that these factors wouldn't destroy bitcoin, but they would reduce the chances of it "changing the world".

Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.

Again, I'm not so sure of this. Can anyone give me any legitimate reasons to anticipate this? So far I've just people on the bitcoin forums saying that the dollar/euro will collapse and bitcoin will attain worldwide dominance.

Basically, I predict they'll find a decent niche, won't replace any currency system in any major country and won't increase in value to insane levels.

Hi Less Wrong!

Decided to register after seeing this comment and wanting to post give a free $10 to a cause I value highly.

I got pulled into less wrong by being interested in transhumanist stuff for a few years, finally decided to read here after realizing that this was the best place to discuss this sort of stuff and actually end up being right as opposed to just making wild predictions with absolutely no merit. I'm an 18 year old male living in the UK. I don't have a background in maths or computer sci as a lot of people here do (though I'm thinking of learning them). I'm just finishing up at school and then going on to do a philosophy degree (hopefully - though I'm scared of it making me believe crap things)

I've found the most useful LW stuff to be along the lines of instrumental rationality (the more recent stuff). Lukeprog's sequence on winning at life is great! My favorite LW-related posts have been:

• The Cynic's Conundrum: Because I used to think idealistically about my own thought processes and cynically about other people's. In essence I fell into comfortable cynicism.

• Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger): Because this was just really galvanizing and made me want to do better, much more than any self-help stuff ever did!

• A Suite of Pragmatic Considerations in Favor of Niceness: Fantastic as I tended (and still tend to) be mean for no real reason and this post put a lot of motivation towards stopping. I've actually started to have niceness as a terminal value now, which is a tad odd.

So anyway, I'm happy to have registered and I hope to get stronger and have fun here!

For every non-duplicate comment replying to this one praising me for my right action, I will donate $10 to SIAI, up to a cap of $1010, with the count ending on 1 June 2011. Also accepting private messages.

Edit: The cap was met on 30 May. Donation of $1010 made.