[next week]

I don't understand why when people talk about the future of Bitcoin they either think about next week:

"OMG THE PRICE IS GOING UP / DOWN"

or 20-30 years time

"OMG WHAT ABOUT WHEN 1BTC IS WORTH $1M HOW WILL YOU SHOW IT ON A PRICE TAG IN A STORE"

The problem is we have a whole big chunk in the middle missing. If we want to run this thing like a business, we need to start thinking about the next 1-2 years.

At the moment we are still in embryo stage, sure it's a pretty huge embryo worth millions of dollars, but it's still pretty fragile and niche. If Mt Gox had their bank accounts frozen this could all be over in an instant. We need to get the law on our side, we need mass-market adoption and approval, and we need to start to diversify the currency exchanges.

Here's what I see as the 3 top medium term priorities for the success of BTC:

1: More places to spend BTC
More people than ever want to buy stuff with their Bitcoins. I'd love it if someone would start an eBay type site that deals only in BTC (in legal goods only), or more shops which sell items online in BTC as well as / instead of $. How about a storefront like Amazon but with a Bitcoin powered checkout, so that any seller can come along and add inventory to the site and gain rep, for a small fee?

2: Public knowledge and acceptance of the benefits of BTC as a currency, not an investment
If you want to try and drive the price up long-term, investment isn't the way. Get out there and spread the word, but focus on Bitcoin's use as a currency transfer system that can replace expensive and corrupt corporate alternatives like Paypal rather than an extreme risk investment opportunity... For example, many people would like to donate to Wikileaks, but can't because the banks block them. Explain to anyone in this position why using Bitcoin to donate is the best method and how to go about it?

3: More exchanges, legal ones.
There are many exchanges out there already but all of them are subject to the whims of the financial organisations they're working with. More is better. If you want to try to safegaurd Bitcoin's immediate future, set up a currency exchange and get solid agreements in place with the banks you work with.

Just thought I'd start this thread as 99% of the posts on this board seem to be from people asking why they are getting poor hash rates on a Nvidia GPU.

Dear people with Nvidia GPUs. Your hardware sucks at bitcoin mining, period. Yes, it might be a very fast and powerful gaming card, and yes, when it comes to folding, Nvidia GPUs always beat ATI. But for this particular task, ATI cards are far far far superior in every way.

If you really seriously want to try to make some money mining, sell your Nvidia card and get an ATI one.

Put it into context. A Nvidia GTX580, top of the line card that costs $$$, is roughly about as fast as an ATI HD5750, a budget card you can pick up for less than $100.

You could sell a GTX580 and buy 2x HD5850s with the money, put them in crossfire, quadruple your hash rate, lower your energy usage and still have some cash left over.