Let's talk about /r/bitcoin.

I sold most of my Bitcoins this week at a significant profit. Some might call me a shrewd investor who knows a good idea when he sees one; others might call me a rat bastard who just ripped off a bunch of naive neckbeards and most of them enjoyed it. In either case, now that I no longer have as much of a stake in it, I'd like to take a good look at r/bitcoin.

In case you've never heard of Bitcoin, here's how Simple English Wikipedia describes it:

Bitcoin is a digital currency. It was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. Unlike most currencies, Bitcoin does not rely on a central issuer, like a bank or government. Bitcoin uses a log across a peer-to-peer computer network to record transactions. Bitcoin's design allows for anonymous payments online.

That just about covers the basics. The fun part is, the exchange rate between Bitcoins and USD is unfixed, so people like to speculate on it. The result is violent swings in price, which just results in more speculators, and so on.

Bitcoin may well be a swell idea - I don't know enough about economics to say. However, the face that the Bitcoin community is presenting to the world is less than stellar. Here are a few trends I've noticed:

The lack of respect for people who don't understand the technology well enough to get involved: Here's someone lamenting Bitcoin for not being 'idiot-proof' implying that anyone without a stack of IT certifications must be an 'idiot'. If you stick around r/bitcoin long enough eventually you'll come across a non-ironic use of the word 'sheeple'.

The use of 'supply and demand' as a thought-terminating cliche to dismiss suggestions that the market is capable of behaving irrationally: Here's an example from right before this week's price crash. A market is not a mathematical function that you can enter two variables into and get a predictable result every single time.

Stereotypical Reddit stuff: Here's a little low-level ethnic hysteria in a comment on a story about Israeli banks limiting customers' access to bitcoin, and here's someone who got 138 upvotes for suggesting that Louis CK should accept Bitcoin.