If I exclude my personal Pirate deposit from the other stuff I do with bitcoin I am still making monthly returns comparable and higher to annual returns in local currency. While many people think Pirate is the lynch-pin for the lending and returns, that is simply not the case. Yes, it would certainly place a big hole in things, but other thefts have been larger and the economy survives.
Expectation: rates will come down, and I have that in my medium term plan. But while returns are still high elsewhere from productive activities, rates stay high. It is what the market is prepared to pay.
What kind of "other stuff"? If it is related to Bitcoin lending, there is the problem that the rates you can demand are affected by the availability of pirate interest rates.
I have thought this over and must agree it can be viewed as a bubble. The relevant question for me is whether interest rates will be maintained for as long as possible, and collapse all of a sudden, or if they will gradually decrease.
With regard to the BTC/USD price, I believe that the former option would be bearish, while the latter one would dampen price increases.
Other stuff:
I have long-term enduring investments with several people.
GLBSE has been a source of some great trading profits during April.
There are some BTC backed loans for non-BTC ventures.
I invested in a manufacturer recently - returns yet to be determined.
Lots of the loans in my book are for equipment/trading/non-lending arbitrage.
If I didn't have my Pirate account, the remainder of the coins would still be working hard, and people borrowing are prepared to pay 10-15%/month currently. My own expectation is that the rates will decline slowly. But for now, I'm able to pay around 7%/month on deposits and make a margin.
