[baddox]

So then, the real statement is that Bitcoin is useless, except for the people who are savvy enough to use it? I can accept that, but it's a very weak statement. You could have said the same thing about PayPal (which is now quite popular in the general populace) or even credit cards before they became mainstream.

[revdinosaur]

I don't entirely disagree, but even still people understood both of those things conceptually before they existed. Credit, arguably, predates state-backed currencies and PayPal provides the same functionality as a bank for online transactions. Bitcoin is a traded commodity represented by long hashes stored on disk. It's very abstract and coupled with its current volatility it makes it hard to pull people in if they aren't already convinced that its massive deflation will make them rich.

That said I have mined and sold bitcoin (luckily a few weeks ago) I just remain skeptical about its viability to go mainstream considering these and many other barriers. I was personally frustrated by it when making a recent purchase due to the fact that my buying power fluctuated by 10% while proceeding from shopping cart to checkout.