Originally Posted by
I_royalty_I
Well the people at the top, who are mining MASS amounts of bitcoins are paying millions of dollars to do so. Some are paying millions every single day to cover the electric they use, the computers and such that provide the processing power. It's not cheap for them, they just do it on a much bigger scale. So the average user will get the same return as the big guys, at the same rate at least. The more you put in, the more you will get out.
I don't think it will ever be backed by anything as that's how it was built. It won't one day switch to being back by USD or anything like that. It isn't just the big guys selling their bitcoins either. On the exchanges, everyday people are trading the majority of bitcoins each day. Sites like coinbase charge a fee to trade there, but that's worth it (imo) for the convenience. You don't have to worry about dealing with any sketchy folks. You can cash out whenever you want. Easy.
No one person/corporation can manipulate the currency enough on their own considering the market cap is almost $40,000,000,000 in value. They may be able to flood the market with their coins. That would cause the price to drop a bit, but then it would cause buyers come swoop in and buy it all up, pushing the price back up to what it used to be. It's all a guessing game though unless there's big news relating to the issues.
