.

[Vladimir]

.

[glub0x]

1) A friend of mine ask me to explain what's bitcoin just like that.
2) Another one who was complaning about euro get a answer from me like who is still using euro?. He answers attacking bitcoin (not enough bitcoin ponzi scheme, no demurge). I was very happy He did his own search about it!

They both knew i was a btc fan because i post something like "bitcoin UPUP" on facebook when kimdotcom twitted...

[Stephen Gornick]

Share your anecdotal evidence please.

Yesterday I spoke with a sales rep from mobile app service that provides online ordering for restaurants.  I noted how they only accepted VISA/MasterCard/AMEX, etc. and I said that I preferred to pay in Bitcoin and asked if that was possible.  

Not only was the response not "Um ..., what's that?", the response instead was, without hesitation, that to be lean on their end (being a startup) they had to choose just one payment provider and Stripe was that one they chose.   So they definitely knew what Bitcoin was and apparently had considered it.  Bitcoin as a Brand is growing thanks to the free press it gets and because of the cheerleading from everyone holding bitcoins.

[bitcon]

my mom just asked me a couple days ago.  "Hey, whats this bitcoin thing all about?"  She had ran across the Cyprus MSNBC story on the internet.  I kinda laughed to myself because its been over two years since i first heard about bitcoins, but i try not to tell my parents anything technology related, because they have a hard enough time understanding stuff like spam and malware. 

[BTC Books]

I browbeat my kid into buying 100 back when it was $2.95.

A few weeks ago it was:  "HOW much?"

Now she's beating up her friends to get into it.

[molecular]

Was at a birthday part 2 weeks back at a friends. Met some very old friends. 2 years back I was there, too. Noone was interested in bitcoin back then (although I kept blabbering on about it).

This time the interest was much higher. And they came asking me.

Other friend who I've been basically pestering to put some money in bitcoin since 2011 (he never did) now wants to buy on the next crash (lol) and is asking me all the questions. He admitted he didn't believe me when I said "this will be big".

[Amitabh S]

Vladimir why are you not answering Hitler's calls?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4axmD2YvPnA

[Manticore]

Had Bitcoin discussion a week ago with an upper-executive of a company that makes optimization software for large hedge funds, financial institutions (Deutsche Bank, etc.), research centers (US Naval Research, etc.,), and government agencies (The Fed, etc.,). He is a libertarian from a Nordic country who is based in Panamá for domiciliary reasons. I brought up BTC and he confirmed that he had heard of it and seemed to know enough to discuss it. He was adamant that Bitcoin would ultimately not succeed because the concept itself can be replicated infinitely. That is the achilles heel, in his opinion. He is dumping all of his USD holdings into hard assets in emerging markets but would never consider Bitcoin a safe alternative.

[Deafboy]

There is lot of interest from random people in central Europe too. Sad thing about it - they're mostly kids trying to get rich over night with their laptop gpu. Some e-shops are considering to accept btc, there is lot of media attention  but everybody seems to be obsessed with mining.

[phatsphere]

… the concept itself can be replicated infinitely.

The counter argument is, that yes this is true, but the current incarnation of Bitcoin is based on a huge amount of collected computational power. Replicating _this_ amount of work is the real challenge, not the concept itself. You can even go further and explain, that you have to motivate and finance all this work which is ultimately based on power consumption. That doesn't come for free, neither automatically.

[Manticore]

Hmm... I am wondering why here is only one ebay and why it is not infinitely replicated still. Ask him if you have chance please.

My comparison was Facebook, actually.....and that BTCs value is based on the network effect (hence why LTC, PPC, et al are not worth anything). I agreed with him that current BTC market activity is a bubble (IMO) but that BTCs brand appeal and role as progenitor does give it credibility in the same way that Facebook has virtually no competitors and a massive market cap, so I would not completely discount the network effect.

His problem with this is that Facebook is a company while BTC is simply a means of transferring value whose process can be replicated (a better comparison is Paypal, Moneybookers, Dwolla, Zashpay, WePay, or the other countless payment companies). He asked me to imagine if I would continue to use Paypal if I had to worry about enormous exchange rate fluctuations.....or to imagine if to make Paypal purchases I had to buy and sell its stock as a means of transfer......and he asked what problem BTC solves for the average person.

[cypherdoc]

… the concept itself can be replicated infinitely.

The counter argument is, that yes this is true, but the current incarnation of Bitcoin is based on a huge amount of collected computational power. Replicating _this_ amount of work is the real challenge, not the concept itself. You can even go further and explain, that you have to motivate and finance all this work which is ultimately based on power consumption. That doesn't come for free, neither automatically.

That's a great explanation.

[Anon136]

Hmm... I am wondering why here is only one ebay and why it is not infinitely replicated still. Ask him if you have chance please.

My comparison was Facebook, actually.....and that BTCs value is based on the network effect (hence why LTC, PPC, et al are not worth anything). I agreed with him that current BTC market activity is a bubble (IMO) but that BTCs brand appeal and role as progenitor does give it credibility in the same way that Facebook has virtually no competitors and a massive market cap, so I would not completely discount the network effect.

His problem with this is that Facebook is a company while BTC is simply a means of transferring value whose process can be replicated (a better comparison is Paypal, Moneybookers, Dwolla, Zashpay, WePay, or the other countless payment companies). He asked me to imagine if I would continue to use Paypal if I had to worry about enormous exchange rate fluctuations.....or to imagine if to make Paypal purchases I had to buy and sell its stock as a means of transfer......and he asked what problem BTC solves for the average person.

exchange rate fluctuations are not such a big deal for me since they tend to mostly fluctuate up and rarely down =P

[oakpacific]

… the concept itself can be replicated infinitely.

The counter argument is, that yes this is true, but the current incarnation of Bitcoin is based on a huge amount of collected computational power. Replicating _this_ amount of work is the real challenge, not the concept itself. You can even go further and explain, that you have to motivate and finance all this work which is ultimately based on power consumption. That doesn't come for free, neither automatically.

This, what in some people's eyes are weaknesses of the bitcoin are actually its great strengths, if alt-coins were to compete with bitcoin, they have to survive:

1. Early-adopters pump and dump, I can just mine a lot and even scam you out and run;
2. More directly, a 51% attack.

Both cannot be rid of without great computation power back-up.

[cypherdoc]

… the concept itself can be replicated infinitely.

The counter argument is, that yes this is true, but the current incarnation of Bitcoin is based on a huge amount of collected computational power. Replicating _this_ amount of work is the real challenge, not the concept itself. You can even go further and explain, that you have to motivate and finance all this work which is ultimately based on power consumption. That doesn't come for free, neither automatically.

I would add that to motivate that amount of work and finance,  there would have to be something fundamentally different about the new protocol to make current Bitcoiners switch.  But it seems obvious that people prefer  a fixed supply that is autonomous.

Also being open source,  I'm sure the network would immediately adopt significant changes that were deemed beneficial.

[oakpacific]

… the concept itself can be replicated infinitely.

The counter argument is, that yes this is true, but the current incarnation of Bitcoin is based on a huge amount of collected computational power. Replicating _this_ amount of work is the real challenge, not the concept itself. You can even go further and explain, that you have to motivate and finance all this work which is ultimately based on power consumption. That doesn't come for free, neither automatically.

I would add that to motivate that amount of work and finance,  there would have to be something fundamentally different about the new protocol to make current Bitcoiners switch.  But it seems obvious that people prefer  a fixed supply that is autonomous.

Also being open source,  I'm sure the network would immediately adopt significant changes that were deemed beneficial.

And the people behind it are as far the best, alt-coiners would bitch about it but it's a fact. Right start with the creator, who open sourced everything then disappeared, this is quite a statement indeed.

[stash]

Yesterday couple of husband and wife contact me via phone after they saw my ads on localbitcoins and setup a meeting for BTC dealing, When met, I'm surprised while figured out this is firstime they trying to setup wallet and dont have an idea what it is, I'm helping to setup wallet and give them some explanation about bitcoin. He knew about bitcoin on news regarding what happen in cyprus and want to kept few BTC for savings.

In the end sold them 3 BTC for fiat. 

[Missionary]

I have had 3 interesting talks the last week.

1. A guy in my church asked me about this thing called Bitcoin and how to buy it.
2. Another guy from my church asked me the same thing.
3. I called a friend that I helped buying bitcoins back at $12, telling him not to throw away or sell his computer. He was a bit surprised to hear that the wallet on his computer was worth a lot more than the computer costed when he bought it.

[GeoRW]

Hmm... I am wondering why here is only one ebay and why it is not infinitely replicated still. Ask him if you have chance please.

My comparison was Facebook, actually.....and that BTCs value is based on the network effect (hence why LTC, PPC, et al are not worth anything). I agreed with him that current BTC market activity is a bubble (IMO) but that BTCs brand appeal and role as progenitor does give it credibility in the same way that Facebook has virtually no competitors and a massive market cap, so I would not completely discount the network effect.

His problem with this is that Facebook is a company while BTC is simply a means of transferring value whose process can be replicated (a better comparison is Paypal, Moneybookers, Dwolla, Zashpay, WePay, or the other countless payment companies). He asked me to imagine if I would continue to use Paypal if I had to worry about enormous exchange rate fluctuations.....or to imagine if to make Paypal purchases I had to buy and sell its stock as a means of transfer......and he asked what problem BTC solves for the average person.

Bitcoin gives average person freedom to own money. Fiat money is debt based and belongs to the country that issued them. You can own gold, but bitcoin can transfer value much easier and cheaper.

[johnyj]

I talked to several of my friends in IT branch, the more knowledge they have in software engineering, the more likely they regard bitcoin as a programmer's scam. Just like the other guy mentioned, from a programmer point of view, this kind of software worth nothing because it can be easily duplicated

But I think the reason is that they barely have some knowledge in finance and economics, especially people's behavior. It is time and the community build up the trust of bitcoin concept and made it valuable, not the technology behind it. But this obviously not in their best interest because they are getting well paid from existing fiat system

People should be hit by the fundamental flaw of today's monetary system before they start to consider bitcoin, normally it is difficult, but Cyprus crisis is opening a window now