do you consider them pumped and fitting that description or just too used to defending them from other people? i imagine its prolly the latter.
The latter indeed.
just curious how their red line effects the mining stocks being more or less reasonably set by the market and how they prevent/expose/cull ponzi's, etc. on other markets.
It's a simple point of competition for finite resources. This is not quite as visible in fiat, because in fiat bs gov'ts can create and do create fake money to prop up wasteful/pointless paraeconomic ventures run by the "right people", which is just another way of saying "popular" (which is, of course, the wrong game to play if you aim for prosperity).
In BTC however, where resources are absolutely finite, there will only be so much BTC available for investment at any given time. This BTC will be allocated to the available investments somehow. Part of it will be allocated
by idiots, on paraeconomic criteria like "we don't like MPEx". Part of it will be allocated economically. As time goes on the share available to the idiots to allocate as they see fit dwindles, and the share available to the rational players increases. Since human behavior is reinforced by success and (usually, except in the case of a really limited pile of hardcore idiots) discouraged by failure, the flow is even faster as individual people realize they are being part of the idiot group and jump ship.
Soon enough the situation reaches equilibrium, which is pretty much where we're at. In short, the beauty of economy is that it works.
None of this is to mean MPEx is perfect, by any means. That's not the point at all. It just means MPEx is the standard, and because stock exchanges are fundamentally a convergent, naturally standardizing market it also means the accretion trend will continue, exactly in the same way and fundamentally for the same reasons Bitcoin grows against fiat currencies.
It's by now impractical for any serious company contemplating being listed in BTC to forego the significant capital available on MPEx in order to favor a different venue (in fact, the cost of doing so can be calculated on the basis of the volume difference, and is in any case significant) for a variety of reasons, and certainly such an attempt would imply the modification of said company to include "being an exchange", which requires rare and valuable skills (programming notably NOT being one of them) and other human capital. Such an effort necessarily spells a movement away from said corp's core mission, whatever it may be (*).
A willingness to move away from the core mission, a cavalier attitude towards incurring costs and foregoing benefits all work together to paint a very unflattering picture in the eye of the discerning investor (If these people have any confidence in their business, why are they working on moving away from it to do something else? If they have the capital to pursue reinventing the wheel, why do they need my investment? If they're not interested in cashing in now why should I expect they ever will get my shares dividends?) and rapidly the convergence effects become very strong indeed.
* To quote Buffet,
Concluding this little dissertation on acquisitions, I can't resist repeating a tale told me last year by a corporate executive. The business he grew up in was a fine one, with a long-time record of leadership in its industry. Its main product, however, was distressingly glamorless. So several decades ago, the company hired a management consultant who -naturally - advised diversification, the then-current fad. ("Focus" was not yet in style.) Before long, the company acquired a number of businesses, each after the consulting firm had gone through a long - and expensive - acquisition study. And the outcome? Said the executive sadly, "When we started, we were getting 100% of our earnings from the original business. After ten years, we were getting 150%."
PS. For a doodle, Bugpowder's graph is remarkably accurate. The period is indeed ~5 months, for instance.
