Thanks for shedding some realism on the situation. Most people here have never been interested in Bitcoin or its applications: that simply is a myth. Before I said that 80 or maybe 90% of the people posting here are only in it for the money, and not for the tech, and I'm gonna stick with that. There's an active movement, and that includes you too SgtBett, that actively make people dream of wealth and grandeur in the future. People only lose when they sell according to their philosophy, while the best thing to do throughout 2014, save during some short lived bumps upwards, was to instantly sell all your Bitcoins.
I know the comparison is highly unpopular here, but I still believe that Bitcoin has a lot in common with a ponzi scheme. There is tremendous peer pressure to stay into the 'game', if only to fill the pockets of people that were here before. I almost on a daily basis see people advising new members, that mostly have no clue about Bitcoin or where the price is headed, to buy as much as they can and 'hold'. It really is sickening to see sometimes.
This again: this instant agressiveness against anything that goes against the status quo here. If you rather not read it, press the 'ignore' button as quite a few people tend to do here. A sign of utter intellectual weakness (as it boils down to plugging your eyes and saying 'lalalalala can't hear you!'), but go ahead if that makes you feel better.
Your opinion isn't just "unpopular". It is pretty unsubstantiated. Which partially explains the aggressiveness you complain about.
Numbers like "80 or 90% don't care about Bitcoin" are pulled straight out of your ass. And are basically accusing anyone who is pro Bitcoin of being a shill or fraud.
And the comparison with a ponzi is as old as this forum. Yes, we understand: those who bought in at single digits are still enjoying happy profits, while those who bought in in late 2013 are sitting on a big loss, USD wise.
But that's where the similarity to a Ponzi or pyramid scheme ends. A Ponzi is by /definition/ unsustainable. Bitcoin has a number of usage cases, or at least so do some investors and speculators think. Depending on the exact usage case it'll settle on, total valuation could be much lower than now (that'd be the "failure" case, I guess), or it could be vastly higher.
So you have to excuse the older members who've heard it all, 3 or 4 times already, each time the market corrected down. Bitcoin might (I stand by that) still fail to gain mass adoption over time. But the arguments brought forward by the "critics", such as that there's a consolidated effort to brainwash everyone into buying more is pretty much bullshit. Doesn't mean the uber bulls are
right, but it's a lot more likely they do drink their own kool aid - looking at the registration dates of those accounts, unless they were total idiots in 2011 and 2012, they benefited way too much from the market
not to feel pretty good about. Genuinely good, not "let's trick the newcomers into buying this fad" good.
here because they think that bitcoin has better chances to give them wealth than playing the lottery, but still trading to increase their stash