No. The "hoarding" argument has been beaten to death. Evidence shows people are not hoarding the coins: every day, 40 thousand coins change hands on the single largest exchange: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html This is six times the number of coins created daily (7 thousands).
In other words, people are not hoarding them, but are trading them very, very frequently.
And this is just measuring MtGox's volume. Other trades (merchant sales, other exchanges, etc) are likely surpassing MtGox's volume in aggregate...
> Evidence shows people are not hoarding the coins: every day, ... This is six times the number of coins created daily (7 thousands).
That's not very convincing. A better comparison evidence would compare the daily exchange to the total inventory.
However, the real question is more granular. If we look at #exchanges/age for each bitcoin, what do we find?
I'd expect to find that some bitcoins have higher turn-over than others even if there's no hoarding, but what fraction have never been traded, or have been traded less than 3 times?
I apologise for re-hashing old arguments, I haven't been following them, and I'd be interested to read rebuttals if you know where they are.
I'm not sure that evidence of trading is evidence of non-hoarding. It's only 0.5% of the total number of bitcoins out there that are traded daily. Is that a lot? I'm not sure, but I don't think we can compare it to the number of coins created daily and draw conclusions from that.
Some people are hoarding them. A lot of them. Or at least they claim to be.
How much of this volume are traders trying to flip bitcoins? I am willing to bet it could be as high as 95%.
As someone who has mined, bought bitcoins, and tried using them at bitcoin stores, there is really nothing special I can buy with them, and can and have dropped 20-50% in a matter of hours.
In other words, people are not hoarding them, but are trading them very, very frequently.
And this is just measuring MtGox's volume. Other trades (merchant sales, other exchanges, etc) are likely surpassing MtGox's volume in aggregate...