The article just supposes that Bitcoin is the next big thing and then it portrays where we might be in terms of adoption if indeed the supposition is right.
But I would rather want to know why people are adopting Bitcoin and what they are exchanging it for. That way I could truely understand the Bitcoin economy and whether it is actually the next big thing or not.
I don't want to be a harsh critic but I always get my hopes up for nothing with these kind of articles.
I went to a Subway in Allentown and bought subs with bitcoin last week. Scan QR code, send amount with a (in fiat) .5 cents confirmation fee to get it accepted quickly, done. No signing paper, no pinning codes, no 5% vendor transaction fees for using a piece of plastic.
I've bought humble bundies, reddit gold, wordpress themes, and an sd card from a bitcoin auction site with bitcoin. I regularly tip people on reddit with /u/bitcointip and its simple syntax. I donate to various open source projects in bitcoin because I just copy paste their address and send a few USD worth in seconds.
This isn't an attack on your response, because yours is a realistic answer to the question.
However, I find it difficult to believe these things warrant the massive increase that bitcoin has seen the past few weeks. Open source projects, indie games and one sub shop do not a currency make.
That said, I am a believer in bitcoin and hold a few myself. I also exchange it for the things you speak of. But I desperately want to get from auction sites, humble bundles, reddit gold and wordpress themes to groceries, fuel and clothing. Then we might justify this market cap.
Interesting. Is this site legit? Considering the ridiculous and opaque pricing scheme of airline tickets, I've always looked at sites like Kayak and now cheapair with some skepticism (preferring the old standards of expedia and orbitz). However, there's really no reason to believe that expedia has some magic that cheapair and kayak couldn't also harness.
Folks are already using bitcoin for international commerce and remittances where they were underserved by banks and services like Western Union or PayPal.
Bitcoin only needs to be useful for one kind of transaction for it to be enormously valuable. Once it is useful for some class of transactions it will be more valuable for other kinds of transactions. This is a classic network effect.
The particular kind of transaction where I am convinced it will take off is international commerce. There are lots of potential transactions that are simply not happening because of the hassles of moving money around between currencies and banking/government regimes. There are lots of other transactions happening that are slow and expensive for the same reason. So bitcoin is providing value there, both by making existing transactions cheaper and making other transactions possible. I'm specifically thinking of capital and labor in currently underserved markets that can now more easily be exchanged where they were not before.
Then there are whole classes of transactions that bitcoin makes possible that were not possible before. For example, right now one could write a bot that receives and spends bitcoin to provide some service and not have to get any permission from a bank or government to do so. What kind of cool weird services are going to come from that?
But I would rather want to know why people are adopting Bitcoin and what they are exchanging it for. That way I could truely understand the Bitcoin economy and whether it is actually the next big thing or not.
I don't want to be a harsh critic but I always get my hopes up for nothing with these kind of articles.