If I was holding EUR in a bank account in Greece, Spain, or Portugal, I would have reasons to be seriously worried at the moment, even if I was an "ordinary person" who doesn't know what a libertarian is.

The risk of the Euro breaking apart as a result of bad central bank policies is very real at the moment.  It is not some theoretical dystopian wet dream in the minds of libertarian philosophers.
I know lots of hands-on people who are working in the finance industry and some of them think that the risk of a EUR collapse by 2013 is 50%.

Your EUR in the Greek bank would then probably be converted to Drachmes, and god knows how far these would devalue.  Even in a German bank account you will be facing uncertainty. How would the central bank set the EUR / Deutsche Mark / EUR2.0 / whatever exchange rate?

Skepticism about centralised fiat currencies is very much in the Zeitgeist at the moment, even among ordinary people. That skepticism will draw some of them to Bitcoin.

You think I am being paranoid? Well, you don't have to take my word.

The Swiss Franc/ Euro exchange rate has recently reached a historic high. (the Swiss Franc is seen as a safe haven currency because the Swiss central bank is not quite as incompetent as the others). The market doesn't lie.


I agree, ordinary web merchants are no killer app.

Some have suggested decentralised p2p file storage as a killer app. This is an example where you can only utilise a decentralised currency. Or at least, if you utise a third party payment method, that third party has the power to shut down the entire storage network at will. This would be seen as a weakness and would increase the risk of data loss from a user's perspective.

Another killer app that has been suggested is a p2p DNS fused into the blockchain of Bitcoin.