And it came to pass that the Lord sayeith to all before him; "Give up all ye bitcoins unto Johnny Bitcoinseed and ye shall live forever in the house of the lord".  And they gave Johnny Bitcoinseed all their bitcoins and were happy ever after.

Amen.

Praise be to Johnny Bitcoinseed and Jesus too.

Love the concept.  Let's end the old, moldy, terrible education institutions.  Time for something new.  This is it.

I am thinking metric-term + "Bit"; for example 7 CentiBits

After all, it is "BitCoin", it makes sense to keep the "Bit" when describing the fraction of a BitCoin as this would connotate we are speaking of Bitcoins.

Likewise for LiteCoin use MilliLite etc

Early 50's.

Like the Internet, at first use tended to be the twenty somethings, computer savvy, and then suddenly quickly adopted by the larger community.

I am thinking the average age may be rising, not so many young people have a thousand dollars to buy with.  Bitcoin certainly has captured the imaginations of a wider variety of people from all walks of life this past year or so.

Sleep, eat, go for walks, read, work on my business....

FireSteel.com FireSteels.  Been using BTC for a year or more

He's invested a couple thousand Paraguay Guarani's which takes 4412 of them to be worth 1 US dollar.  

In other words, he controls a whopping 0.002 of a Bitcoin and he's gunning for more.

Only after having invested in my 1-year supply of food, clothing etc, all debts payed, and all that (so I can sleep at night no matter what may be coming down the pike) I'd put the remaining 40% into silver 40% into bitcoin and 20% in cash buried in the backyard.  Of crypto, maybe 85% BTC and 15% LTC.

Can't eat cash, bitcoin or silver directly.  However stored food and supplies are not very liquid.  Best to diversify.

Just trying to help.  Don't gloss over the hit of taxes and inflation.  Tales of guaranteed 4, 5, and 10% interest are often just that. And you could lose it all. As others have mentioned, sitting on a million dollars invites all sorts of unwanted attention: .gov LOVES to confiscate in one way or another.

Many of you do not know the full brunt of .gov confiscation of wealth.  When you work for low wages you actually get more than you pay in (goods and services such as roads, fire protection etc).  HOWEVER, after a certain level of income you will see that you are hemorrhaging gads of money into government coffers - in effect supporting everyone else.  If you are into socialism now, you won't be when the fruits of your labor and intelligent investing are stripped away from you at the point of a gun and given to other people who did not earn it.

I maintain that getting your first million is actually the easy part.  It's holding onto it in such a way that you can live free on it without having to work -  that's hard.

Of course, if YOU got your hands on a mil your experience would be different.  Of course.

Kids, a million dollars really isn't all that much anymore.  I know it appears to be alot if you are making minimum wage and living in your parents basement.  But if you are out in the world and paying your own way, your own insurances etc (because you are living on your million dollars without having a job), you may not even be able to live to retirement age on that much money, much less continue on into your golden years with a reasonable level of finances.

Just sayin...do the math and tell me I am wrong...

Say you are 25 years old and will retire at 65.  One million dollars is only $25,000 per year (not counting a hit of about 38% in taxes).  Then at 65 you will have about zero dollars remaining.

Don't tell me about making wild interest on your money.  Interest rates are near zero.  Inflation is going to further erode the value of your money.

One million dollars is not nearly enough to get you through life comfortably.

"Coulda Shoulda Woulda"

The lament of the ages.

Look - early adopters are more often burned than rewarded.  Hindsight is 20/20.  Chances are if you invested when BTC was just pennies, you would have lost it all.  That is why few people did so.

Currently Bitcoin is successful but NOBODY knew it would be back then when it was first starting out.  Which is why few people took it seriously and invested heavily.

Here is what you do now: PROVIDE SOMETHING OF VALUE in exchange for BitCoins.  Yes, its true - you too can do it.  This is just the beginning, the business opportunities are tremendous.  Grab the golden ring while it is put out there for you!

Now if all the ambition you have is to spend a few bucks to get a few bitcoins and then sit back to become a millionaire, forget about it.  That train has left the station and to be honest you don't deserve it.  But if you have a go-getter attitude and provide value to the world, the world can be your oyster.

The choice is yours.  It always has been: cry in your milk or create your own success.  There is nobody to blame or take credit but yourself.

Storable Food, clothing shoes etc you wear, tires if you have a car, tools, firearms and ammunition.  These are the best hedges of all because you can use them no matter what happens.

I took a stab at it...

From one source there is something like $46.513 trillion dollars worth of money in the world (note: this is very difficult to measure as there are several types of "money")
There are about 7-billion people

This comes to an average of $6644 per person

$46.513 trillion dollars divided by 21-million bitcoins = $2,214,904 per bitcoin.

That is what dreams of made of.  Half a bitcoin could be $1 Million dollars US currency.  While not a truck full of money (unless it is in pennies) it certainly is a lifetime supply if used efficiently.

Ah, pipe dreams....

Well according to the votes so far, I may have about a quarter of a shit-ton.  

Now is that metric shit-ton or and English measure shit-ton?  We need to be more specific on units here.

Perhaps they are actually doing some good, acting as a kind of brake against irrational exuberance.  Eventually they, too, will have to admit the true value of bitcoin to the world.

Maybe many of you here were not old enough to appreciate the Internet when it first started taking off during the 1990's - the naysayers and doubters who said the Internet was full of drugs, porn, and scammers and was a scourge on society.  They said they themselves would never use the Internet because they got all their information from libraries and newspapers and magazines and could purchase anything they wanted from big box stores.

I remember when digital cameras were first available to the general public in the late 1990's.  The old hand photography professionals laughed and said they would never use digital cameras - just a toy.  Are they laughing now?  Of course not - they are using them!

In my over 50 years of life I have seen a number of disruptive technologies start slowly at first and then suddenly hit a critical mass that takes out the entrenched Old School way of thinking and doing.  Each in their turn at first laughed at, ridiculed, and even feared the new usurper.  Each in turn were finally adopted by nearly everyone.

After the fact, do these people ever admit they were wrong?  Not likely.  It is said after the fall of the Third Reich after World War II you were hard pressed to find even one German who claimed to have supported Adolph Hitler!  Mark my words, one day, you will be hard pressed to find one person who admits to having had been against Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies - instead most will claim they were supporters all along!

The way I see it, this is a disruptive technology that can pay off handsomely for the early adopters.  And believe me when I say this is still the early adoption phase.  This is like the Internet of 1998.  Digital cameras in 1999. But this is the power of money, of finance - even just owning one or two bitcoins could change your life.

LOL.  "Caused by Bitcoin"

That is like saying "When will we have the first homicide/suicide caused by a rock"? Or a driveway.  Watch out for that window pane, too!  Deaths caused by rope (hanging) are a constant threat.

Be weary of that rope, folks!  Maybe rope should be banned.

Let's not even get into the dangers of pennies, dimes, and nickles.

Rocks, and other inanimate objects or ideas such as bitcoin do not and cannot undertake the effort to commit homicides and suicides.  Saying so gives these objects some sort of magical power which of course they simply do not have.  It is an error in thinking and reasoning.

What you are trying to say is something like "when will someone commit suicide or homicide because of their own personal ideas about bitcoin". Personal ideas that are likely far off center from the typical bitcoin user.

Politicians and media often use this same error in reasoning when trying to persuade the public to pass laws.  Don't fall for it, you are smarter than that.

It could easily blow past US$1000.  For example, here is one pure imaginary speculation considering the quick expansion btc has been doing:

Current value end of 2013: $400+
End of 2014:  6X current value (more people on board, more places to spend BTC)
End of 2015:  3X value of 2016 (more people on board, more places to spend BTC)
Enod of 2016: 1/5X value of 2017

After 3 years:  6 X 3 X 1.5 X $400 = 27 x $400 = $10,800
If you had 100 bitcoins you would be a millionaire.

Pure speculation, but you can see the potential.  Of course nobody knows, the whole thing could crash and burn or bitcoin values not rise so fast or maybe even drop.

I recommend everyone get a couple of bitcoins.  What the heck, it could possibly massively pay off.  Plus it's alot of fun.  Beats scratching lottery tickets and picking numbers from a state lottery.  And the potential payoff far greater.

The point is this: to enforce socialism you need to have men with guns willing to use them.  This is NOT freedom.

Even a child knows violence and threat of violence is wrong.

Yet many adults think it is OK to FORCE me participate in socialist ideals.  It is not and never will be.

Socialism sucks.  It is evil and against all principles of a free society.  You do not threaten violence EVER.  The non-aggression principle trumps your ideas of equality every time.

For many people immersed in public education and, dare I say, propaganda, this is new information.  It can be difficult to digest.  But once you "get it" you "get it".  Then you understand and you can never go back to thinking your old and incorrect thoughts.

Capitalism = Freedom
Socialism always always always leads to tyranny.

They'll get to regulating litecoin in time.  Just wait your turn.