I find it amazing that Bitcoin, despite its stated goal of being a currency uncontrolled by bankers etc, is the purest construct of fiat currency ever witnessed. Government issued fiat has no intrinsic value, except that which is assigned to it by the market, and backed in part by the issuer's guarantee. Everybody complains that the dollar is "essentially worthless."
And yet Bitcoin is absolutely worthless, save for the value assigned to it by the people using it. It's a tyranny not of the government but by the people themselves, and the only value it has, is that which is assigned to it by the people. There is no backing, no manipulation, no changing the rules. It is worth exactly what everybody thinks it's worth at any given time.
I could almost say that in a market with so few controls and sources of value other than the individual's opinion, bubbles and busts are sure to occur, and recur, and recur. Humans follow the herd mentality, when everyone else likes it, so do you, and when nobody else likes it, neither do you. With no other source of valuation... can it happen any other way?
Gold's valuation has ~99% the same dynamic going on, yet gold holds relatively steady. So this theory is right out.
Occam's razor: Volatility is natural and inevitable in bootstrapping from nothing to something in the global financial world.
