Quote from: bels on October 28, 2012, 12:55:44 AM

many people start with 0 trust in one another and build up that trust through small transactions...That's a problem for people like me who deal in hardware that sometimes costs in the hundreds of dollars.

I would suggest a third party escrow initially until you build up more trust. Buyers are more wary because of all the scams and the fact that payment is non-reversible.

Quote from: Meatball on October 27, 2012, 09:43:57 PM

Most currency is created due to the fact that people are already exchanging goods and services and they need a simpler way to do that beyond bartering and the like. The problem with BTC is that the currency came first and it's looking for goods and services to be used on, and to be honest, I don't see that getting any better.

I never thought of it that way. We could think that BTC is created to replace most currency, as a currency of the people as opposed to a currency of the government. So instead of looking for goods and services to be used on, BTC should be targeting government regulations or corruption.

Barter -> Precious metals -> Paper money -> Digital money

Quote from: FreeMoney on October 28, 2012, 12:04:39 AM

It is because pretty much everyone who has BTC wants it more than everything else on offer.

This is because people are speculating in BTC. For the speculation to stop, there needs to be many merchants accepting it, making it just as good as fiat. But for there to be many merchants, people need to be willing to spend the current exchange rate and stop speculating. Otherwise, we will only see merchants with low costs, such as service-oriented ones.