[clvv]

Interesting, but until some real use case or adoption, these Bitcoins sound like Internet stocks to me.

edit: I didn't really look into it, but I'm going to now.

[kiba]

There's lot of real adoption. The bitcoin forum alone get 500 posts a day and a whole lot of traffic. Maybe you should check us out at http://bitcoin.org

I myself run a little magazine about bitcoin that is hosted on a VPS that I pay in bitcoin. I even own a domain name that I paid in bitcoin.

The economy is still small though, but with adoption, it could become real big.

[brown9-2]

I myself run a little magazine about bitcoin that is hosted on a VPS that I pay in bitcoin. I even own a domain name that I paid in bitcoin.

What kind of exchange rate on bitcoin to USD did you get on these purchases?

[kiba]

Last time it was 0.90 USD something. The exchange rate changes with the market.

[fleitz]

No it can't the total money supply is limited to 21 million bitcoins, this will create drastic problems unless they are infinitely divisible.

[kiba]

They are divisible to the 8th place. That's 21 quadrillion unit of bitcoins.

[joelthelion]

And that could be increased indefinitely if the need arises.

[rmc]

So the economy could become dependent on everyone keeping their software up to date..... As a web developer this scares me.

[sgornick]

Does getting Call of Duty: Black Ops(Steam Account) for $26 worth of bitcoins count as enough of a "real use case" for you? http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=4807.msg70315#msg...

[sgornick]

Ya, scratch that.

Which brings up a good point. With Bitcoin, there is no concept of chargebacks. Once bitcoins are sent, they are gone.

When you wish to make a purchase with a trading partner where trust has not yet been established, the http://ClearCoin.appspot.com escrow can be used to protect the buyer.

For this transaction escrow would have been free to use, as the amount is under 100 BTC.

[sgornick]

How about a Hacker News clone, powered with bitcoins?

With witcoin, you earn money every time someone votes or replies to your post.

http://witcoin.com

[getsat]

Recommended reading on the kind of social changes a popular cryptocurrency like Bitcoin could usher in: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=a+lodging+of+wayfaring...