It's too early to launch a service with BTC as the only way of payment. To begin something new, you need to get the largest possible customer base, and few people have BTC today. Or do you have any reason to believe your business will be more appealing to BTC owners than non owners?

The mistake you're making is in the association of Greece's troubles with the value of the European currency. They're hardly related.

It's like saying that because there are thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles, this is a poor city where there's no work, nor any opportunity, and that all shops selling expensive goods should close down because there won't be any buyers with big money to spend.

Well, few people talk about it but some embassies are terrible people to make business with. As ambassadors can't be arrested, some are abusing their rights, parking where it's not allowed, or going to the best hotels, and leaving without paying for their rooms. I got that from a top hotel in the French riviera. An ambassador leaves saying that the hotel shall bill the embassy. The hotel's doing just that, but one month later, when the hotel calls the embassy to ask why they haven't paid, the embassy just replies that it hasn't received the bill...

Awful people. I understand HSBC's decision.

Yes! I like the idea of "foreign currency". Some people want to make a BTC town but that's not a good idea. BTC must be kept foreign, that's one of its greatest strength.

I would like a way to get the funds even if the project isn't entirely funded. Maybe after it reaches a 50% level or a given number of backers. If a project gets more than 10 backers, or half the money it hopes for, it should be able to go ahead.

What kind of bank is that?

Normal banks don't allow any modification to their contracts, and you can't print the contract yourself. Then a scanned document doesn't look like an original... I just guess Russian banks have lower standards than in the Western world.

Yes, Somalia has a chance, but I'd say BTC needs to be adapted to work there. M'Pesa is a huge success in neighboring Kenya because it works with simple text messages. The average Somalian can't afford a fast computer, an iphone or a good Android smartphone. If someone could design a BTC app which could work on the most basic smartphone using very little bandwidth, this is all they need.

More info here:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/fbi-bids-to-extradite-largest-childporn-dealer-on-planet-29469402.html

and more tech in this article:

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/08/06/darknet-freedom-hosting-sites-shutdown-led-by-fbi-exploit-use-against-tor-network/

From what I understand, the privacy of the TOR network has been kept. What went wrong was that some users were using an old browser, but that doesn't explain what led the FBI to Eric Eoin Marques, who was assuredly aware that using an old browser isn't safe.

More supply, and also more demand. More people will want euros, more business in euros, there could be more exchanges between Latvia and its neighbors which already use the €. This could make their value go up instead of down.

Bitcoin is not Esperanto because Esperanto is dead. You can't learn it anywhere in the country I'm staying, and nobody understands it.

How about wondering about the viability of the other systems?

Anyone to think the Euro will last? That the current deficit is sustainable? What will be the price of gas in 50 years? Hey, bitcoin's not perfect, but nothing is in this world.

Here's better data from a better source:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/6

It might be too early to see a pattern, but some things are really changing, and the idea that heat brings violence is nothing new.

We have to find first a unit of measure. Some people in the project will have very fast new computers, some other guys will want to participate with much older machines. When I looked into bitcoin mining, it took me a while to understand that my computer was not strong enough for it. I could have left it running one whole month and earn only peanuts.

So there should be an easy test for anyone who thinks about joining the program, to give an idea about how much profit this could make. Is this in the works?

The problem here is that computing power has never been cheaper, and it keeps on falling down. Maybe 10 years ago, I remember I once had my computer running all night to reencode a video. Something that today I can do in minutes.

I see an opportunity though, in calculating weather patterns and forecasting climate changes. This is the kind of stuff that requires huge computing power, but the people working on this are underfunded, and I don't really see how you could monetize such a system with them. The CIA and NSA also need large resources, and they have money, but they don't do much business with outsiders. I may have another idea, but I'm afraid it would not work economically. How much do you estimate 24 hours of computing power will bring to the computer owner?

Sorry, but it is not banks which are killing cash, but governments.

They installed capital controls everywhere. You cannot cross borders with a suitcase full of money, and in most countries large cash transactions are forbidden. Many countries have also made it illegal to pay your tax in cash above a given amount. Worse, if you go to a bank to make a large cash deposit, the bank will be required to check your credentials and report the transaction to the authorities. Then look at Swiss banks. They just love cash, but all the world's governments are doing everything they can think of to kill them.

How about the opposite happening?

I, for one, now say that I will boycott Thailand in my next Asian vacation, and that I will now spend my money in neighboring Cambodia or Burma. I'm sorry for the Thai people, but let's think about the opportunities for the neighbors.

Bunch of losers.
It doesn't need to be a written law, just imagine Ben Bernanke saying at a dinner that BTC should be illegal. Thousands would loose confidence, and many exchanges would close.

I'm sorry for Thai people, and I guess BTC users will just have to spend their BTC in neighboring Cambodia or Vietnam. Or maybe someone could write to the Thai embassy asking how I could travel there with nothing but BTC in hand?

You may remember that when it started, Facebook was only between Harvard students. Rich, bright kids. Now that it's mainstream, intelligence level of the average user has come down dramatically. With BTC still in an early phase, intelligence level of the average bitcoiner is high, but this will not last, and nobody should want it to last.

It's awful, but if we want bitcoin's success, we want it to be used by dumb blondes, high school dropouts, sickos, Homer Simpson, etc...

There are several answers. It depends on your location, your customer's location, and the currency used in the transaction. Just use BTC for all your transactions and your problem is solved. Create a new wallet for your business, get the money through an anonymizer before you send it to your main wallet, and that's it.

If your transactions are done in $ or €, it's a bit more difficult. That money should go from your customer's pocket to an exchange in the customer's country. The exchange will then send you BTC.

I checked that I've read The fountainhead but I haven't, I watched the movie instead (old one, with Gary Cooper). I liked it a lot, I watched it twice.

It tells the story of a man's right to live the way he wants, and everyone can only enjoy the idea.