Bitcoin is the first peer-to-peer (P2P) digital currency and payment system to gain significant interest. This month its marketcap surpassed $1 billion. [Below is a description of what Bitcoin is, and isn't, and why it has caught on to the extent it has.]

What currency is feared by the European Central Bank as a threat to fiat monetary institutions? What currency is cash-like, but digitally transmittable allowing for ultimate anonymity and global mobility? What digital currency is up over 2,200% over the last year? The answer? Bitcoin.

I don’t think that KWN is doing the Gold community any good by throwing this guy at us and, unfortunately, I don’t think that JS is helping by not ripping this guy apart.

While $500 silver probably won't happen its rise will be orgasmic - a rapid climax rally followed by a dramatic decline. Gold will be a buy up to $3,500.

3 critical drivers for gold, silver and their relative securities [are once again enticing] investors to...take stakes here. These catalysts...affect both the short-term and long-term, and so, at the very least, a floor may be developing.

So many headlines are saying “$5,000 Gold; $10,000 Gold; Silver, The Investment of the Decade,” etc, etc, etc. Will that happen? A history of failed fiat currencies says "yes". When will it happen? That is the question few articles address because they simply have no clue, beyond their sensationalized headlines. Who can best answer that question? It is not "who can", but "what can", and that comes from the market itself - ever the most reliable source. The answers may not always satisfy, but the market is never wrong [and this is what the market is saying]. Words: 590

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Those who discuss gold in terms of bull or bear markets do not understand reality and do a disservice to less informed readers. Gold is money, true money, as opposed to fiat currencies. True and honest money cannot be in a bull or bear market. Its value is stable (but not constant!).

The euphoria, New Year’s Eve at the Big Casino, continues but the price will be high when it all ends and it will end because it is not this or that asset class that is in a bubble but the entire world that is a giant soap bubble that will float until the heat of the sun pops the thing in one ugly mess. I fear that subprime loans, dot.com fantasies, and the S&L crisis will pale when we are done with this party because, my friends, the bill for the festivities must get paid.

The United States is one of the few countries to have experienced two currency collapses during its history (1812-1814 and 1861-1865). Is it about to happen again? Words: 1450