Just saying "we accept bitcoin" is not enough to gain mainstream adoption. Retailers need to offer an incentive to use bitcoin. So 10% off if you use bitcoin.

Because the opportunity to know it was there. You have Internet, you have the ability to comprehend and create, so you could have been made aware of bitcoin early on. Whether you did or didn't is a separate topic.

I think if Wal-Mart, Amazon, Overstock, or one of those large companies agreed to pay their vendors faster if they took bitcoin, we would suddenly see mainstream adoption.

The reason that people keep saying bitcoin is a ponzi scheme is because the early adopters are going to make the MOST money just like in a ponzi scheme. But that doesn't mean it is a ponzi scheme.

Let's say that I bought Berkshire Hathaway when Warren Buffet completed his takeover. I think each share was trading around $20. If I had held that stock from the 1960s to today, I would have gone from around $20/share to $213K per share. Does that make it a ponzi scheme? No, it just means I was an early adopter.

It works the same for investors in bitcoin. Every day I wish that I had learned about bitcoin in 2010 and 2011. I could have acquired hundreds if not thousands of bitcoin for pennies on the dollar. So yes, later investors could then buy those bitcoin off me and I would profit, but that doesn't mean that it's a ponzi. Just means it's an investment.

You don't need a price reference if you're buying your goods in BTC, the supplier is buying their goods in BTC, etc, etc, etc. Unfortunately, that's not reality, so you're right, you need a value in USD. 

I am investing in stocks for my retirement because they are income generating and I can comfortably predict an average 8-10% increase year over year over the next 40 years. Yes, there will be some down years, but if over the long haul, it'll balance out. Besides ... There was the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession in the 2000s. That's a 70-80 year difference, so maybe I'll miss the next one entirely and be dead. :p

When you are saving, what you are looking for is the ability to access your cash very quickly. You are putting your liquid cash into an iron box and telling the bank that they are welcome to use that money to lend it to other people, they can pay you for that right, but you better have that money when you want it.

Investing is quite different. Investing is taking that money and putting it into something--stock, assets, real estate, etc.--that are meant to produce some amount of return. You are losing your right to instant access to your cash, but the returns are greater. In many ways, saving can be considered investing because you are getting something back, but the returns are so paltry and it never matches inflation. That's why people suggest you keep money in a rainy day fund, but then invest the rest. It takes money to make money.

That actually makes perfect sense. They have the funds to cover the money that they owe and, simultaneously, they can have a much smaller bill next year. That person might turn around and buy again in a couple days/weeks.

Juniper is kind of annoying me with this stuff. Once remittance programs start to heat up, 5 million will be what we sneeze in to. It's too difficult to look at the current statistics and try to come up with an answer.