Investment demand itself will drive bitcoin to success

[aztecminer]

This is the problem with bitcoin at the moment and all other emerging cryptocurrencies.

Consumers are not going to take an extra step to buy Bitcoin, so they can then go out and buy something that they could have already bought with the debit card in their pocket. This is not going to ever happen. It would be like asking someone to go to the store and buy a can or petrol for their lawn mower, when they already had a can of petrol in their garage.

That's why currently, people are interested in Bitcoin for three primary reasons: speculation, novelty, and making darknet purchases (places debit cards don't work). In my view, the way to change this is for the community to embrace and promote services/methods that allow consumers to receive their wages in Bitcoin.

i sure don't do that. i own bitcoin because i believe that "trusting in god" for the federal reserve to print and control money is a failed experiment.

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[vrm86]

nice post. 

right now the challenge Is crossing the chasm to where early adopters will start using it, not just innovators.

People give way too much value to their hard earned BTC's to spend on frivolities.
It's not the same having 3 BTC for example, than having 10000. If you have 3 BTC you give it way more value than it's inmediate equivalent in fiat, and you would rather use fiat than BTC to buy stuff.

On the one hand it makes sense, on the other people have more tendency to gamble with bitcoin lightly. So IMO the general feeleing is that Bitcoin is an innovation that brings great opportunities, but it is still "electronic money from internet", a technical curiosity.

[johnyj]

Another potential area is international trading and remittance, but that requires user to have exchange with good liquidity on both ends. I observed that some small companies are using bitcoin to do business with China due to its slow foreign currency settlement process.

Surprisingly, there are not a lot of progress in the most possible area - game and software purchase on internet. So far the major software company and game company have not accepted bitcoin payment, which should be the most convenient way for them to expand foreign market sale

[OROBTC]

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MicroGuy

In my case, I did indeed buy using my Bitcoin even though I could get what I wanted for slightly cheaper using cash.  I started as a complete beginner a little over year ago (approx.), and it took "learn by doing" for me to understand and correctly use BTC.

I have spent about 35% - 40% of my Bitcoin that I bought.  I will HODL most of the rest (investment), and hope that I can get some more by rickety localbitcoins.