All of this speculation and hoarding is making Bitcoin too unstable for merchants. Wasn't the point of Bitcoin to create an alternative currency meant for commerce? But with its current volatility, I personally would not accept Bitcoin in my trade of business.
The irony of Bitcoin is that most people are hoarding it so that they might trade it back for fiat currency in the future... That is what really saddens me.
if you look at world economics right now, everything is in a bubble state. You can invent a new currency but you cant control how people use it. If bitcoin can survive the PR damage of this recent bubble, it could eventually reach ubiquity, but we will have to see. The inherent integrity of the thing itself remains, its just the uninformed now think its some sort of scam. I predict in about 4 years we will see renewed trust and interest in the idea of a bitcoin economy amongst the laymen, hopefully by there could be some sort of safeguards against wild fluctuation in price. Controls on the exchanges maybe? I'm holding my
BTC and waiting to see what happens. I'd love to be able to pay my rent and buy groceries with
BTC and I hope that one single
BTC would be worth a huge amount of said food and shelter. I'm not really sure how the community can help this happen though.