Re:Bitcoin’s Rise: What If It Is Not A Bubble?
by talkingquickly on Wednesday April 03, 2013 @01:31PM
(#5487551)
To counter your anecdotal evidence with my own, I know a fair few people who have bitcoins and not one of them has any interest in the fact they can be used to buy drugs.
Of the people I know It's roughly an equal split between speculation on its value and longer term interest in its potential as a low friction, decentralised currency.
Not to say it's not some peoples motivation but I think that they're probably in the minority. There was a piece which was on the front page of HN a while back (can't find the link right now) which estimated the total revenue going through silk road and it was a fairly small fraction of the total bitcoin transaction volume if I remember rightly.
Of the people I know It's roughly an equal split between speculation on its value and longer term interest in its potential as a low friction, decentralised currency.
Not to say it's not some peoples motivation but I think that they're probably in the minority. There was a piece which was on the front page of HN a while back (can't find the link right now) which estimated the total revenue going through silk road and it was a fairly small fraction of the total bitcoin transaction volume if I remember rightly.