Anyone want to speculate on why the price of bitcoin has been trending up, what seems to me to be sharply, over the last week? Did I miss a bit of news that made bitcoin much more valuable?
A major gambling site is said to accept bitcoins soon.
I think that provably fair gambling, ease of cash-out (really the whole concept of cash-out may be rendered obsolete), anonymity, and lack of charge-backs add up to gambling being the "killer app" for bitcoin. It gives significant benefits to both sides.
Saving a couple of % on CC charges, and avoiding fraud and chargebacks is a "killer app" for low margin resellers like *mazon but unfortunately the vendor cannot strongly influence how the customer pays. But if gambling helps us get to 1B-10B -- if it puts BTC in the hands of a significant minority of the population then this will bring us the rest of the way.
Vice is often an early adopter of many technologies -- the internet, beepers and cell phones are a few examples. And those are the uses that make the news. This has been a public service message for newbies concerned with how this technology is being used.
