Without GUI, adoption will remain sluggish. With sluggish adoption, not only will price be pressured, but more importantly - and this is a coin killer - the emission will run its course to the point that XMR will considered to be a "community premine" despite all our good heroic efforts.
I agree with this.
That perception of "community premine" is my biggest fear. Especially without the GUI. I would vote FOR turning my 1,000 Monero's into 500 if we could reduce the coin release schedule to avoid this AND being accused of driving our investments up.
However that said I've never paid too much attention to dark or other coins that rocketed up but Monero has the longest period of being able to accumulate close to a fair price / average price of any coin I've seen. I'm not sure if that makes sense ... but in my head I envision that 75 - 85% of the Monero's owned were accumulated between .025 & .045. And this has been possible for months and months. So there is some defense against the community premine in that price stability has been so consistent.
Also releasing more coins creates more supply even after the coins are released. Not sure how to explain this either but there is much more danger of going down when there's 5,000,000 coins on the market vs 2,500,000.
My thinking is starting to shift on all of this a little. Monero has clearly stated their direction from the beginning (GUI, database, etc). As more features are added the risk of them not meeting those expectations shrink THIS is what drives the price up on a GUI release IMO. Also as time goes on more coins are dumped on the market. There are only two factors.
A. How many coins will be available when.
B. What will the demand of coins be available when.
More coins early is actually more dangerous for early investors as early adopters face the risk of buying in when demand outstrips supply & then supply catches up later (Vertcoin, Cryptonite).
The demand of coins (even bitcoin to a large degree) is fully limited to speculation not actual use. So I think (could be wrong) that what speculators buy it when may have less to do with the actual adoption & use than it does with one group of speculators crying foul at another group of speculators. Ironic part is the group of speculators crying foul will likely be the ones driving up the value of the group of speculators holding.
It's such a lose lose situation. Do nothing, get accused of community premine. Do something to slow down emission, get accused of only wanting to drive up the price of your investment.