Why aren't I filthy rich yet? It's been like two months.

[wachtwoord]

We express the exchange rate in fiat currencies like USD and EURO as a proxy for purchasing power, which is indeed very important.

[1713512188]

1713512188

[punningclan]

The one factor that will change this is awareness - spread the knowledge of Bitcoin.

I carry around a Casasius physical bitcoin and often get the opportunity to show it and use it as a prop to help describe what Bitcoin is.  I also carry a second Casascius bitcoin, opened revealing the private key (previously spent), which is useful to understand how bitcoin is just data that can be used with a mobile or online.

I also have in my wallet in my back pocket a few strips of paper ... each a paper bitcoin wallet from BitAddress:
 - http://www.bitaddress.org
I have funded these with 0.1 BTC and have given them out in the same spirit as the Bitcoin faucet.  I do keep a copy of the private key and let the recipient know to redeem the code in 30 days (e.g., using "redeem" QR scanner on Mt. Gox Mobile app for Android) otherwise I recycle the funds to a new paper wallet address.

Additionally, what helps bitcoin move forward to is actually use Bitcoin today like we expect it will be used in the future.  For instance:

Purchase wireless prepaid refills using Bitcoins (there are now or will be soon three sources for this):
 - http://www.bitmit.net/en/user/TangibleCrypto  (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Cricket, etc.) (to be branded as CellCoin.net )
 
 - http://www.btcbuy.info/CallingCards.cshtml

And coming soon:
 - http://www.bitcoinwireless.com  (from BitInstant)


Or pay for all NewEgg, Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Noble, etc. purchases using bitcoins:
 - https://www.spendbitcoins.com/convert
 - http://www.btcbuy.info/Default.cshtml


Offer to broker the trade of bitcoins for others (friends, family, neighbors, etc.).  If you already have a Dwolla and Mt. Gox account, for example, keep an amount of USDs at bay so that if someone wants bitcoins, you are prepared to help them (which, of course, expands the community and helps us all).  But make sure to impress upon them the need to get set up on their own for the next time.     Same thing goes for someone wanting to cash out -- you can leave an open offer to buy bitcoins.    There is a line though between doing this infrequently and not-for-profit versus someone acting as a money service business in which they might have restrictions (in many jurisdictions).

Learn the bitcoin economy, and what bitcoins can buy.  We all know about Alpaca socks.  But do you know about Bitcoin Deals, which has a catalog of more than a 100,000 products, from travel luggage to toilet tissue:
 - http://www.BitcoinDeals.com

Or did you know that in more than a half dozen cities bus/rail fare transit passes can be reloaded using bitcoins?
 - http://bitfare.org

The Trade page on the Bitcoin wiki continually sees new additions:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Are there any "assets" at a bitcoin stock market which are interesting to you perhaps?  They aren't all mining endeavors.  Feed Ze Birds and ZipConf, for instance, are two issues whose success brings further commerce to bitcoin:
 - http://www.GLBSE.com

And Bitcoin doesn't have to be all business.  Do you have a buddy insisting your team isn't going to win?  There's an app for that:
 - http://www.BTCSportsbet.com
Or is there interest in the election?  Right now there is a bet with skewed odds on the chances who will win the presidential election:
 - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=122
Or any number of topics:
 - http://www.BetsOfBitco.in

What it boils down to is, those holding bitcoins shouldn't just sit on them.  A position can be maintained at a steady level by spending bitcoins on goods and services and then replenishing the position to accommodate for that spending.  These actions help bitcoin businesses make it through this crucial period where the market might naturally not yet be large enough for the business to be viable.  But with each additional bitcoin used in commerce, these businesses can start to justify their existence.  Because the revenue stream for these endeavors is in bitcoins, they then use the proceeds and profits for spending and that spurs further economic activity.  Your spending has a multiplier effect in the bitcoin economy.

And a much wider bitcoin economy is what is needed to justify over the long term the exchange rate at a level anywhere near where it has risen to ($55 million "market cap", currently).

Excellent and helpful post!

[punningclan]

Don't forget all the hacks that are going on. It's impossible to make a bitcoin business 100% secure as long as hot wallets are needed. If you haven't been hacked yet, you were simple not yet a target - seems to hold some truth here.

Just as an aside I think the hot wallet problem can be solved by multi signature transactions: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0010

[Roger_Murdock]

I've had a few friends read Erik Voorhees' introduction to Bitcoin (which btw, I think is phenomenal and you should read now if you haven't already).  http://evoorhees.blogspot.com/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html

But like I said above, the responses I've gotten have been extremely skeptical.  What's really frustrating is that nobody seems to have much interest in actually challenging the argument that Bitcoin will be revolutionary.  Instead, I get the impression that they find something about the whole idea itself threatening (then again, that might be a response to the feverish look in my eyes as I explain it  ).  Most recently, when I pressed a friend for specific objections, here are the two he offered: (1) "it's too complicated; only geeks are going to be into it" and (2) "what's to stop someone else from copying the idea (or improving upon it) and coming out with 'Bytecoin'?"  I answered the first with the "internet before the invention of the web browser" analogy.  I further explained the positive feedback loop of network growth --> increased value --> increased incentive for user-friendly tools and innovations --> network growth, etc.  Re: the second objection, I explained network effects and Bitcoin's tremendous first-mover advantage. 

Of course, none of that convinced him.  Finally, his response was "well, I just don't see it happening." WTF?

[Spekulatius]

What always makes people that I talk to spechless is the price chart from its beginnings to the end for MtGox USD. Especially when I describe the phenomenous Appreciation in price of 10000 times of its initial value to the all time high of June 2011. From there you can go on explaining that some people really believe it, use it and have become millionaires with it.

[thezerg]

Some rebuttals:
1. Can he describe the current monetary system?  Or just how a money printing press physically works to make it really simple :-).  What about the anti-counterfeiting features?  Can he describe that in detail?  Then why insist on understanding all anti-counterfeiting details of BTC?  The details ARE too complicated right now but in the near future transfer will be as simple as touching cell phones.  That's what it means to be an early adopter.  If the details were easy BTC would be priced like gold/silver.

2. What stops people from doing the same to facebook, google search, nike shoes and a thousand other systems that are at this point pretty obvious?  The answer is that people DO, but unless their system solves a sub-problem better then the original it won't catch on.

3. An answer to "well, I just don't see it happening," could be to ask HOW unlikely they think it is (and bring up historic currency devaluation situations all over the world: Germany, Argentina, etc).  Use a bit of fear.  Ask them what's going to happen if their money is suddenly worth 1/10 its current value, if basically every import cost 10x as much.  How much peace of mind will be gained by putting 1% or less (just skip a few friday lunch-outs and put it in BTC instead) of their net worth in a commodity that will survive hyperinflation?  It could be gold, silver or BTC.  Gold/silver is pretty expensive now, and of course if you choose gold/silver you'd better have it on hand because a piece of paper secured by the very banking system that's in trouble won't be worth much.  And that jewelery cost you a lot more then its weight!  And you as an individual won't really be able to go on ebay and purchase stuff from China with it.  But if you lose the argument to gold/silver, be content, they'll come around to BTC eventually.  Even if they don't you'll at least have helped your local region if hyperinflation does hit your area.

[dancupid]

I don't know if it is an accident, but Bitcoin really is like gold.
Aesthetically anyone who has used it must have that sense - it has a certain weight to it.
Having used if or nearly a year it does actually feel tangible - perhaps if it was totally easy and you didn't have to wait 1 hour for your 6 confirmations it would somehow feel trivial and worthless.
Waiting for those confirmations actually gives it weight and value. It adds something to its worth.

[Raize]

Ideas can spread like wildfires, but not when they are still the first log.

[Spekulatius]

I don't know if it is an accident, but Bitcoin really is like gold.
Aesthetically anyone who has used it must have that sense - it has a certain weight to it.
Having used if or nearly a year it does actually feel tangible - perhaps if it was totally easy and you didn't have to wait 1 hour for your 6 confirmations it would somehow feel trivial and worthless.
Waiting for those confirmations actually gives it weight and value. It adds something to its worth.

CRAP, than zipconf is turning our Bitgold in worthless foolsgold i guess.

[molecular]

Back in the hype-days of 2011 a friend urged me to sell my coins (this was when we were just about passing $3, around easter or so). I said: "no, I'll hold them for a very long time and only sell if I really have to".  He said: "uhm, there must be some price at which even you will sell". I answered: "ok, true. I might sell some when the price hits one bar of gold".

I had in mind a 'bar of gold' as you'd see in a James Bond movie. A "Good Delivery" gold bar should be around 380 oz = 11.8 kg of gold.

Assuming 250,000 tons of gold exist aboveground and can be mined in the next 30 years that would amount to 250,000,000 kg / 12.5 kg/bar = 21,154,000 bars of gold.

Assuming gold and bitcoin turn out to be equal contenders, then:

21,000,000 BTC = 21,154,000 bars of gold

so

1 BTC = 0.99 bars of gold
1 BTC = 1.01 bars of gold

So it seems I'll never sell my stash of bitcoins.
So it seems I'll sell some of my bitcoins at some point.

EDIT: corrected thanks to SgtSpike

[molecular]

I don't know if it is an accident, but Bitcoin really is like gold.
Aesthetically anyone who has used it must have that sense - it has a certain weight to it.
Having used if or nearly a year it does actually feel tangible - perhaps if it was totally easy and you didn't have to wait 1 hour for your 6 confirmations it would somehow feel trivial and worthless.
Waiting for those confirmations actually gives it weight and value. It adds something to its worth.

lol. there might be some truth to this.

This reminds me of a story (don't know if true) where sysadmins of some newly-aqcuired hellishly fast unix-machine had to add intentional delay to the prompt because people thought the commands they entered couldn't have possibly done their work sucessfully because they "didn't take enough time".

[SgtSpike]

Back in the hype-days of 2011 a friend urged me to sell my coins (this was when we were just about passing $3, around easter or so). I said: "no, I'll hold them for a very long time and only sell if I really have to".  He said: "uhm, there must be some price at which even you will sell". I answered: "ok, true. I might sell some when the price hits one bar of gold".

I had in mind a 'bar of gold' as you'd see in a James Bond movie. A "Good Delivery" gold bar should be around 380 oz = 11.8 kg of gold.

Assuming 250,000 tons of gold exist aboveground and can be mined in the next 30 years that would amount to 250,000,000 kg / 12.5 kg/bar = 21,154,000 bars of gold.

Assuming gold and bitcoin turn out to be equal contenders, then:

21,000,000 BTC = 21,154,000 bars of gold

so

1 BTC = 0.99 bars of gold

So it seems I'll never sell my stash of bitcoins.

Your calculation is a bit off there...
1 BTC = 1.01 bars of gold.

[molecular]

Back in the hype-days of 2011 a friend urged me to sell my coins (this was when we were just about passing $3, around easter or so). I said: "no, I'll hold them for a very long time and only sell if I really have to".  He said: "uhm, there must be some price at which even you will sell". I answered: "ok, true. I might sell some when the price hits one bar of gold".

I had in mind a 'bar of gold' as you'd see in a James Bond movie. A "Good Delivery" gold bar should be around 380 oz = 11.8 kg of gold.

Assuming 250,000 tons of gold exist aboveground and can be mined in the next 30 years that would amount to 250,000,000 kg / 12.5 kg/bar = 21,154,000 bars of gold.

Assuming gold and bitcoin turn out to be equal contenders, then:

21,000,000 BTC = 21,154,000 bars of gold

so

1 BTC = 0.99 bars of gold

So it seems I'll never sell my stash of bitcoins.

Your calculation is a bit off there...
1 BTC = 1.01 bars of gold.

woops, correcting my post. thanks.

[Roger_Murdock]

*bump*

Well, that's a little better, Bitcoin. Not good. But better. Now how about we quit playing games and get serious? I don't want to end up as one of those poor schmucks who still has to work when he's 35. 

[SgtSpike]

*bump*

Well, that's a little better, Bitcoin. Not good. But better. Now how about we quit playing games and get serious? I don't want to end up as one of those poor schmucks who still has to work when he's 35. 

LOL, well, at what price point are you a millionaire?

[arklan]

*bump*

Well, that's a little better, Bitcoin. Not good. But better. Now how about we quit playing games and get serious? I don't want to end up as one of those poor schmucks who still has to work when he's 35. 

as someone who is 31, i agree.

[ninjarobot]

"what's to stop someone else from copying the idea (or improving upon it) and coming out with 'Bytecoin'?"

Hah! That would *never* happen.

[The-Real-Link]

*bump*

Well, that's a little better, Bitcoin. Not good. But better. Now how about we quit playing games and get serious? I don't want to end up as one of those poor schmucks who still has to work when he's 35. 

as someone who is 31, i agree.

Thirded.

[piramida]

1) Why aren't I filthy rich yet?

The trick is to sell some bitcoins. Sell 1k BTC on MtGox, you would at least upgrade your car and then some

[WishIStartedSooner]

and after all the debate... we are still poor 

what?! I've made more on this thing so far than my job pays me in the equivalent amount of time! I'm absolutely thrilled! I'm on board til its either in wal-mart, or at zero.