Bitcoin's future is clear to those who study technology's history

[ThatDGuy]

Sorry I disagree.  Bitcoin still has negligible users and a tiny total value.  We are in the Innovator stage. 

Concurring with Hawker on this one.  I know approximately 20 people now who are aware of Bitcoin.  19 of those are only aware of it because I told them.

Today we had a local news channel talking about Bitcoin.  Awareness is about to grow at an exponential rate.

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[kireinaha]

In April, there were only a few people in my life that knew about bitcoins, but they hadn`t invested and saw them mostly as currency for drugs. Now, just seven months later, most of the people I talk to just in passing know about them and it seems to have lost some of the drugs associations, but I still don`t really know anyone who`s invested.

[jeppe]

We are clearly the early adopters and we will be very wealthy in the future if we hold on to our coins

[AnonyMint]

Reality check Bitard.

Litecoin is $36. There is a huge demand for alternatives to the ponzi failure.

[BitDreams]

Thank you for the post.

[jellies]

this is a nice idea

however the graph of tech adoption highlights the flaw in the comparison.

The impressive adoption graphs are for *classes* of technology, not individual *examples* of the class. The adoption of the fax machine has the typical curve, not the adoption of the NEC FL5000 fax. The adoption curve of the smart phone, not the Nokia smartphone. The adoption rate of social media sites, not the adoption curve of myspace or friendster.

It still isn't clea what makes bitcoin THE crypto currency in future. (I'm not even sure what makes Amazon THE online shopping destination either, and if I knew, I'd buy stock in it).

What if the bitcoin collective fall out, perhaps spinning off incompatible alternative. What if it is adopted faster than the infrastructure can handle then becomes all messed up perhaps over a holiday online shopping season. What if mtgox gets totally hacked. Or perhaps it doesn't scale properly or misses features that users and companies really want to see?
then the next better competitor without those flaws will take over and then the value store part of the bitcoin equation will go into fast reverse - almost overnight. Can you be sure none of these things or another dozen things I have not thought of, happen?

So the topic could be "The future of Crypto currencies is clear to those .." not the future of Bitcoin.

Then the question is, for those who now find themselves using it to store value rather than to spend, are you clever enough to pick THE turn before anyone else, and get out? or are you just along for the ride much like a small investor in Worldcom or Lehman.

[ofirbeigel]

Jellies, I agree, that is why I wrote what I did in the conclusion. There is no doubt about the future of digital / crypto currency. The only question is which coin will rule - and from the looks of it now, Bitcoin is the first in line.