Lately I have seen another news of some kidnappers demanding ransom in bitcoin. Then the family seems to be really bought $1.7M worth of BTC (about 5.5k BTC as my estimate). This would be one of the reason for the recent price increase ($1.7M is a lot of money!). However medias keep spreading false information on bitcoin, like stating 'bitcoin is using widely in criminals' etc.
So how do you think? Does the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
if it wasnt for the likes of silkroad, world media would never have really started to report/investigate bitcoin.
so although the criminal use of bitcoin is bad for bitcoins reputation, it has helped give alot of free advertising and got discussions happening in the real world, sparking peoples need to look into things they dont fully understand.
but now i think that good news, such as bloomberg and RT saying about bitcoin being an investment option has prompted alot of investors to get in on it. rather then the silk road stuff