Quote from: zoolander on April 07, 2013, 05:30:59 PM

Quote from: trdiablo on April 07, 2013, 04:55:14 PM

Bitcoin is not a bubble that will burst for the very simple reason that the demand will increase in the coming years.

There are new sites every day that accept bitcoins, including big ones. People living in of the 80+ countries that Paypal doesn't support can now turn to Bitcoins and pay with Bitcoins on sites like Wordpress. This increases demand as it gets more awareness.

The customers of tor sites like Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded is increasing monthly, thus increasing the demand.

People that send money to other continents (other currencies) have to pay a lot of taxes, costs and on top of that wait days if not weeks before the money reaches the other person. These people (mostly of our generation) will prefer to use bitcoins instead of their local country currency.

The first Bitcoin ATMs are coming out soon, maybe this year already.

You have to look at he bigger picture here. Bitcoins value will not drop significantly, it will just go up. Even if bitcoins would go below 80$ there would be so many people buying BTC (including me) that it will immediately drive the price up again.

Bitcoin is now at the beginning, in the 3 to 5 years I am confident the value will be close to at least 1000$ each. In the next 5 to 10 years it will go towards 5000$ each.

Do you really think that there isn't any way that Bitcoin can fail, in the short, medium or long term?

In my professional work I help advice start ups and even the ones that have a good product or service have a very high rate of failure. Less than 26% of Silicon Valley startups make it beyond a few years - and they are the ones that secured their first major investment round. We are still very much in the experimental phase and there are many many hurdles before we can say Bitcoin is here to stay.

The only thing I would bet on is that crypto currencies in some form are probably not going away - that is very exciting. Whether or not it is Bitcoin is another thing. First movers are rarely the winners. E.g. Facebook > Myspace > Friendster.

I actually expect to see a family of crypto currencies emerge in the next few years, all with unique properties that meet the various needs we have.

We are not the only ones taking it seriously:

Bitcoin: The Newest Tool In Chinas Currency War Chest

At the end of last week China Central Television, a state-run broadcaster, aired a documentary offering an overview of bitcoin and its potential benefits. Given the tight controls the Chinese government has over mainland media, this was not just tacit approval from the worlds second largest and centrally-run economy. It was a continuation of an ongoing series of rhetoric and actions to undermine the US Dollar, as well as destabilize the beneficiary of global reserve currency status: the United States.

http://www.thegenesisblock.com/bitcoin-the-newest-tool-in-chinas-currency-war-chest/