Bitcoin has speculative bubbles, fraud, robberies, money laundering, gambling, and Ponzi schemes. I think that takes care of all the qualifications for a real currency. Am I missing anything? :)
I don't think api was criticizing Bitcoin. All these evil activities are very unfortunate, but on the other hand they are indicators that a currency is valued and liquid, which is a good thing in itself.
I was actually making a bit of humor, but it really is true. All these things are common to all forms of currency I know of, so it's sort of a sign of Bitcoin's coming of age.
It's deflation. With inflation the amount you can buy with a set amount of your currency goes down (i.e. your currency is dropping in value). Right now the bitcoin is rising in value.