News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Bitcoin hits 3-year peak, nears record high on U.S. ETF a... by thomasthomas on Thursday February 23, 2017 @11:55PM (#13721124)
Check out Jim Epstein's article on how its used in Venezuela. Pretty great use case. As long as there are a few intermediary companies, i'm not sure it matters that most companies don't take btc.

Like many bitcoin users, Alberto, the miner who makes $1,200 daily, imports food from the U.S. through Amazon's Prime Pantry service. This would be impossible with bolivars because almost no one outside of Venezuela accepts them as payment, and the growing scarcity of U.S. currency has made purchasing foreign goods with dollars increasingly difficult. Though the Seattle-based retail giant doesn't accept bitcoins itself, plenty of intermediary companies do. Alberto purchases Amazon gift cards through the cryptocurrency-friendly website eGifter, using software to mask the location of his computer, and then routes his orders through a Miami-based courier service.

http://reason.com/archives/2016/11/28/the-secret-dangerous-w...

Re:Bitcoin hits 3-year peak, nears record high on U.S. ETF a... by gmcmullen on Friday February 24, 2017 @05:29AM (#13722503)
There's a great discussion of that article in Russ Robert's interview of Epstein on the Feb 13 episode of EconTalk.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/jim_epstein_on.html