I am amazed how few people in the US know about bitcoin and even fewer understand it. I work in a very technical field which allows me to travel and I am constantly surveying technical folks of all ages what they think about bitcoin. I would say only about half of the people have even heard about it, of those about 80% of the folks say stay away or "if you can find someone to give you real dollars for bitcoin, do it!"...
There are barriers to entry, so with current regulations there is some difficulty getting Bitcoin. If you don't have a checking account, you can't get BTC from Coinbase. In additoin, if you don't have a Visa credit card, you'll have 5 day waiting period where Coinbase may cancel your order due to "high risk." Other options are paying 5% more at localbitcoins. Or you can do bank transfers overseas to Slovenia (Bitstamp) or Bulgaria (Btc-e). United States is stifling innovation in digital currency.