Some guys on this forum keep saying that we urgently need people to sell goods/services in Bitcoins, preferably never exchange them to fiat throughout the production process. It's definitely good for the Bitcoin economy if finally many merchants are willing to do that.
However, one thing remains a clear, Bitcoin is still a currency even if this is not possible at the moment. We always talk about difference between Bitcoin and fiat currencies, but in order to Bitcoin to become a real currency, we should let go the term "fiat". Bitcoin, just like any other currencies, should be treated the same way in economic activities.
For example, if you buy an iPhone, even though you may be paying it in USD, the production process is not entirely in USD. The manufacturers in Japan, Korea and China will eventually exchange USD to their local currencies to pay for machines and wages.
This is the same for Bitcoin. It's entirely acceptable to sell a product, and then exchange to USD to buy raw materials.
The real world economy is highly inter-connected. The only way for a virtual economy to survive is to inter-connect with the real world. The death of Bitcoin is not marked by the provision of goods/services, nor by the value. The death of the Bitcoin economy is the isolation from the real world.
There's nothing wrong with trading Bitcoins, just like there's nothing wrong with exchanging USD to EUR to buy a glass of wine.
I wouldnt argue for isolating BTC if you can come up with a different way to keep speculation in check. There is a reason most countries have regulation that limits speculation, even the US, despite being ruled by bankers and speculators just passed a law limiting at least individual speculative position in commodity markets. The reason is simple; excessive speculation kills the underlying economy by creating huge price swings.
In actual economies with functional governments, you can regulate or even impose taxes to try and reduce that problem. In bitcoin land, with its huge aversion of anything that even smells like government or regulation, let alone tax and because of its decentralized nature, I dont see a way. Ideally you would want to put a brake on fiat -> BTC -> fiat transactions that have no underlying economic activity, but how would you do that?
So its kind of ironic that government regulations and courts are (IMO) coming to the rescue by isolating bitcoin and thereby possibly allowing it a chance to grow. If nothing else, bitcoin is a great experiment, and one that should make hardcore libertarians think twice before claiming free markets can regulate themselves and intervention, regulation and taxation is always bad. Only bad regulation and stupid taxition is bad but if the commodity and real estates bubbles havent shown it to them yet, perhaps the bitcoin casino will make them reconsider some things.