No but I certainly didn't expect so many people to get fleeced in the not too distant future.
Bitcoin trading is a zero-sum game, each person's gain is someone else's loss.
If the ordinary money (USD,EUR,...) that you put in is less than the money you got out, consider yourself lucky; if you can make even more ordinary money by selling your bitcoins, better for you.
If the money you put in is more than you took out, then you are provisionally a loser. The only way you can avoid becoming a definitive loser is to find some other loser who is willing to take your loss by buying your bitcoins at a price that will clear your deficit (including bank and exchange fees and the interest you could have earned by investing your money elsewhere).
You may find that redeeming loser right away. You may have to wait years for him to come up. Or he may never come up.
The bitcoin market will crash once every sucker with money gets smart
and realizes that all other suckers got smart too.
So, what you need to keep the bitcoin market from crashing is an ASIC miner that creates new suckers with money, rather than new bitcoins.
JorgeStolfi, I know you like to think you are coming up with new innovative reasons why bitcoin is definitely going to fail but really? What you are describing is the greater fool theory. You are not the first to discover this phenomenon, and if you had spent any time reading up on bitcoins you would see it is one of the most common criticisms made of it - usually by those who do not understand it.
To claim that bitcoin value will fall to zero because of the greater fool phenomenon is to claim that all those who say they have bought bitcoins with the intention of holding them until either they fall to zero or until I can use them to buy my everyday goods and services and make my everyday financial transactions is a liar!
The thinking behind the 'bitcoin is nothing but an implementation of the greater fool theory' appears to go like this:
I don't understand what value there is in bitcoin
therefore there can not be value in bitcoin
therefore the only reason I would buy bitcoin is if I thought I could sell it for more
therefore the only reason anyone is and has ever bought bitcoin is because they believe they can sell it for more
therefore bitcoin is an implementation of the greater fool theory
therefore the value of bitcoin will fall to zero with everybody losing out other than implementers/early adopters.
Jorge, please take a look at this. Can you see where there may be a flaw or two in this reasoning process?
You
can see that people have bought bitcoins, that people have sold bitcoins and how much for. You
can not irrespective of the numbers bought at what price deduce why they bought them and what plans they have for them. Please stop kidding yourself otherwise.