There are huge differences. Buying penny stocks is gambling on the recovery of the company. Bitcoin is a new technology, maybe some years ago it was gambling but not anymore. Adoption is growing, and every country have to give their opinions nowadays. That tells a lot. Bitcoin have a limited number of coins ( or today a fixed inflation ) It makes it a good candidate for successive bubbles.
I have absolutely no idea why one want to compare penny stocks with Bitoins. It is more related with the internet stocks of 2000s.
Bitcoin IS NOT the technology. Bitcoin is a name that is supported by technology that is open-sourced, meaning it is not tied to bitcoin and it isn't giving monetary value to bitcoin.
Countries are giving their opinions, because of the transparency problems that bitcoin has and the criminal schemes it enables. This isn't giving value to bitcoin as an investment.
While I agree with you that there probably will be another bubble, but it won't pumped by major players on Wall Street but by some poor schmucks in south- and central-America. Bitcoin is not a game for those who have knowledge and experience investing. It's a high risk, low reward investment to them. Bitcoin is mostly attractive to those who have little experience with investments and who follow hype more then data that they were educated to follow.
I agree with the experience of investors in bitcoins. That s still a new technology, just a baby. Future looks very bright. Past is a little shady as you stated. But it will not stopped big players to come along. So you agree that the BTC economy need more transparency and more "educated" investors. I couldn t agree more!
That's exactly that will stop big players to enter. Big players didn't get big by taking blind risks and just being lucky. In this game, those win who have the most data to make the most informed decisions. When there is no proper data, then the game is not worth playing and there will always be opportunities for games that are more suitable to play.
Just to be clear. I don t refer Bitcoin to the coin but to the technology. But like you said, for the time being, there is no chance that another coin will step up. And i think that there is no chances that some big banks (goldman sachs for example) will issue their own coin to sell it to the world. They will more likely use their own coins to intern money transfers, another good examples that this new technology could do for big companies.
And i m not worrying about the volatility. Once it will be widely accepted, every thing will stabilise. It s just too soon.
But the thing is that Bitcoin isn't the technology. It's just a name that is one projection the the technology. You can't give monetary value to open-sourced technology, because it can be copied and also perfected. When big banks would want to use the technology, then it would make no sense to pump bitcoin while 50% coins have already mined and owned by others. If you would use the same amount to create your own coin, then the investment would give you better control and predictability. People think that the hype surrounding is important, but the only thing that creates this illusion is the lack of proper competition. And there is a lack of competition because people who have a clue in finance, know that the technology is too rough at the moment to be used to support an practical currency. Hype can be created with proper funding and clever advertisement and the public opinion can be easily formed.
Bitcoin isn't important and the technology isn't very important. What is important here is the idea that jump-started the development of open-sourced monetary systems. Truly interesting things in the field won't happen in the near future.