Well, a couple other programmers and I were joking about them the other night on G+ vidchat. Someone offered 100 of them doggy-coins (the official pronunciation if I heard right) for an obsolete disk drive, and everyone laughed (and no takers). IIRC, it was started as a joke on either 4-chan or Reddit - I forget. You just can't tell anymore what things like that will evolve into. Sometimes the joke winds up being on the joker.
The issue with all crypto-currencies is pretty much what Ron Paul used to have on his desk - "Don't steal, the government doesn't like competition".
Doesn't matter who pumps. The .gov is going to come in and dump it at some point.
Just look at the news - after the silk road bust, now
some people pretty high up in the bitcoin biz are being busted because they were helping "launder money". Maybe so, maybe not, who knows (or cares). But one thing that makes BC work is that it's very much NOT anonymous if someone can break Tor anonymity - and the recent bust proves it's possible, even easy - the blockchain shows who has owned each one in turn, it's a bonanza for anyone with enough resources - EG FBI, NSA, three-letter anyone, and quite a few well setup individuals, to simply trace it back to whoever.
Or steal it. BC has quite a history of theft.
So, no matter who pumps, some government (and we know who owns them) is gonna make it dump at some point, there is no real anonymity on the 'net, ever. How you gonna spend it without telling someone where to send what you bought, anyway?
Harry Harrison's "stainless steel rat" series shows how hard it is to be a "successful criminal" in a world of bits - and was written when I was a boy, lo these many years ago. Not that great as sci-fi, but it points out the issues.
One has to wonder...Bitcoin and any other crypto-currency encourages people to learn how to solve crypto problems really fast - could it be a false flag, or a total oops by the guys who let crypto become a popular thing to become good at? This article has an interesting take on that part:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/27/altcoin_gpu_market_crash_security_nightmare/
Because mining bitcoins involves essentially learning how to break a certain type of crypto (SHA-N hashes) as fast as possible. Hmmm, who does that help? Who really stands to benefit? Always follow the money. Cui bono.
My take is this - all these things move, and where there's motion, there's money to be made if you're on the correct side of the trade and timing. Period. Thinking *anything* you trade has actual intrinsic value is about as sensible as saying because I owned GM stock as they went bankrupt, I can go demand a nice big machine for my stock certificates. Sorry pal (actually, I was so short GM it bought me a nice new GM car, but that's another story - the rest of the corrupt markets let me cover my short for pennies, that time).
So, as advised, treat it as a lottery ticket - or better, as a trade, knowing you could wind up a bagholder when the dump comes, and the more successful it is, the more likely that enforced dump becomes.
Like many things, all these favor those with the most resources. You wanna bet you can outdo the deficit-spenders with a printing press? GoodLuckWithThat. You might do fine as an in and out trade, however - like DoChen says (calm down man, I'm on your side) - it can be better than Vegas - almost certainly if you're on the right side of it. Just don't get complacent.
But when something was started as a joke, well, you'll likely get what you deserve.
Nothing is impossible, but some things are pretty unlikely.
