"slow boom, fast crash" is pretty much a property of any financial investment of any kind. Most assuredly, it will be the case with bitcoins as well. It hasn't

"slow boom, fast crash" is pretty much a property of any financial investment of any kind. Most assuredly, it will be the case with bitcoins as well. It hasn't destroyed stocks, it hasn't destroyed bonds (which not very easy to sell btw, but crash just fine), it won't destroy bitcoin either. It's exactly the opposite -- it's lack of an ability to quickly turn bitcoins into regular currency, and slowness of transaction processing, that has a chance of dooming the whole enterprise. As it stands, these are constraints on growth, and an incentive to develop and use alternatives. BTW, the "flash crash" term is usually used to refer to transitory liquidity events followed by equally fast recoveries, rather than regular busts after which price tends to stay depressed for a while, which seems to be what you are talking about here.