A lot of capital would quickly leave the market, depressing prices just as in the last few days. But then it would flow back in to other exchanges, and prices would recover, albeit perhaps not immediately to the same levels.

Cryptocurrencies certainly have a few advantages over their fiat counterparts. For instance, anyone who’s had to put up with the delay of the ACH system or cost of wire transfers can really appreciate being able to clear a transaction to anyone in the world in seconds at minimal cost.

A 1.5% expected monthly return comes out to almost a 20% expected annual return. This is in the realm of a levered equity investment, which most would consider very risky indeed. Any investment offering such a return is likely to contain a great deal of risk, even if those risks aren’t obvious.

The NYSE has already filed with the SEC to create two Bitcoin ETFs. If those prove popular, than ETFs for other high-volume currencies and eventually baskets of currencies won’t be far behind.

For Amazon or any other large organaization to adopt Bitcoin, it seems like they would have to find a way to deal with the extreme volatility of the currency far exceeding their market risk appetites. That Bitcoin futures have been established is a step in the right direction, but that market may need to mature and become deeper before it can accommodate hedgers on the scale of an Amazon.

A quick look at the median ask price on a popular exchange shows 18K USD. Some prominent names in finance are on record as saying the intrinsic value is ~0. That leaves quite a bit of room for controversy.

As the deepest most liquid market, it?s almost a necessity to transact in Bitcoin at some point to get into your altcoin of choice.

It’s certainly an international currency. If we’re talking about becoming the international currency of choice, there needs to be high-volume liquid debt markets at short and long maturities. It would be difficult to achieve something of the scale of the USD Treasury market without a government borrower.

If someone is unable or unwilling to be employed receiving their home currency, why would BTC or any other currency enable them to do so (hyperinflations aside)? Even if they all mined, profit after expenses wouldn’t be enough to live on without massive currency appreciation, which can’t go on forever. (Even if it can still go on a while longer).

Paper money isn’t subject to certain transaction costs and is more difficult to tax. Even today you can find places in downtown Manhattan that are cash only. I would argue that the cost of safely storing paper money outweighes the cost of transacting in other forms of currency for most of us though.

Have funds automatically deducted from your paycheck or bank account to investment vehicle(s) of your choice at regular intervals; learn to live on what’s left over. It’s harder to spend money that isn’t there. 

I believe the following are important factors:

1) Large influence of retail investors
2) Volatility of information being assimilated into the marketplace (related to factors that drive Bitcoin pricing)
3) Widely divergent beliefs on Bitcoin’s intrinsic value

I would be curious to see the median credit card charge. Several people I know are interested in holding bitcoins for fun or to satisfy their own curiosity, but they don't have sufficient liquid funds and aren't willing to sell long-term assets. What they've done is financed their purchases on 0% introductory rate credit cards, to be paid off with future expected cash flows. That could explain both why some haven't paid off their cards yet and why ~70% of those believe "bitcoin is worth the interest expense". I'm sure many are irresponsibly leveraging themselves, but hopefully most fall into the former category.