[warbiscuit]

IOUs that can't be repudiated, payments that can be cryptographically proven, payments that can have conditional logic attached (e.g. third party escrow, without third party having access to the money) -- and all without the need of a centralized authority or PKI system. Those are the real values of the bitcoin system.

Mind you, there are a few downsides too - potential to create transactional race conditions if you control enough of the system; difficulty changing into other currencies; architectural decisions yet to be ironed out about how to scale to a mass audience.

Lack of ability to reverse a transaction could also be seen as a negative in certain lights -- no "visa, cancel this charge, they scammed me".