[buss]

The scripting language is the reason I'm betting on bitcoin in the long run. The scripting language lets you do so many interesting things with it (escrow, wills, and surely lots of things I can't envision).

Check out this video about bitcoin contracts which talks about the scripting language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mD4L...

Unfortunately, if I understand correctly, non-standard transactions are not accepted by most miners currently, which means the interesting things in the previously linked contracts video wouldn't work. This should improve over time as new transactions are proposed and added to the list of standard transactions. The bitcointalk forums, while having a lot of noise, also has interesting discussions about new transaction types.

Bitcoin combined with its scripting language is just too good of an idea to go away, and I think we'll start to see more interesting transactions within a couple years.

edit: Forgot to mention that everyone who is manic about bitcoin never even mentions the good ideas in the actual protocol, they only focus on the crazy price swings. Learning about the backing technology is the best way to feel confident about bitcoin's future.