Word on the street: India.
And they hate being out done by China.
$1300 next week
Source please. Hell, you can't even legally import gold into India. I don't think Indian regulators will take too kindly to Bitcoin, but I could be wrong. I don't know why India didn't jump in earlier .. compared to China, they have a much higher English literacy rate so you'd think they'd already be all over the existing exchanges.
They will not take kindly to Bitcoin at all. India's balance of trade has been suffering due to their gold imports, and since I'm guessing most Bitcoins are outside Indian borders, a Bitcoin craze will just worsen that problem.
However, Indian regulators are breathtakingly slow to act, and often ineffectual when they do. It is conceivable that India will "come online" before their government even grasps the concept.
The important difference between India and China is that China has experienced much, much greater recent growth in its middle class. It's only rich and middle class folks who have the disposable income to buy bitcoins with, and so there are many more potential buyers in China than India.
It's not reasonable to expect a second "China effect" out of India. Our attention now should be focused on Wall Street.
Seems like a reasonable assessment (I am no expert on India so I'm not really qualified to endorse or counter it) and I agree there is unlikely to be the same kind of proportion of middle class Indians as have been Chinese buying in as a speculative investment. Where India does I think have greater shorter term promise is in remittances and as the cellphone revolution continues, as mobile money such as M-Pesa is doing in Kenya.
Just like I anticipate the David Woo comments yesterday are more likely to have a bigger impact on businesses considering adaption than on price I anticipate India in the shorter term to have a bigger impact on adoption than price - though there is a limit, especially with the latter, as to how much adaption can go on without impacting price.
I will repeat, as much as it may sound like I know what I'm talking about remember this is a speculation forum...
Dont even expect a blip on the charts contributed by India. The Indian subforum/and trading sites are proof enough.
The default saving mode is Gold, and Bitcoin wont be trusted as much as gold anytime soon.
At the most we might have around a 1000 adopters in India by now.
Whats worse is you can't wire money to International Exchanges from India (easily/legally). So even the adopters find it hard to get their hands on btc. OTC subforum trades are the main go. No Mtgox,btc-e or stamp buying till the sites start accepting Rupee wires. The trading is within the subforum mostly.
The demand for btc has spawned a few local trading sites but everybodys waiting for some major exchange to add support.