Originally Posted by
Rjk
but the question remains over the value of "the thing"
If you mine up a load of gold, the price will go up or down, but you'd expect there to be a floor below which it won't go, because the gold itself has some use.
At the moment many people want bitcoin, but only because they think the price will go up. If everyone thinks the price will go down then it will go down, everyone will sell and it will become completely worthless. There is no floor.
It is relying on enough people believing they can make money out of having it to retain any value. like tinkerbell coming back to life in peter pan.
If enough people lose faith in that then its dead.