CryptoJunky

Agreed. I think unit bias might have something to do with it as well. People love receiving even 10 dogecoin, but the equivalent value in Bitcoin, which would be some small decimal, is not regarded as being as valuable (even though they're equivalent on exchanges).

What's more is that dogecoin's transaction fee is much much smaller than litecoin or Bitcoin, making it easier to make small transactions and give internet tips.

Personally I think Dogecoin is hilarious. I put together a guide for anyone that is interested in playing around with it.

http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/12/19/getting-started-with-...

Regardless the intention of Dogecoin, it seems to be working as an introductory cryptocurrency for a lot of new users. Can't tell whether or not it will stick around yet, but I've heard a lot of responses from users saying it is the first cryptocurrency they've wanted to try out.

I had originally intended the article to be more of a suggestion to newcomers, that it may be a good time to purchase a bit of Bitcoin if you're looking to get started. It wasn't intended as advice for day traders, but rather for people with long term outlooks trying to enter Bitcoin for the first time, which is what constitutes much of my audience.

Rereading I do see how it comes across as short term trading advice though. I suppose I'll have to be much clearer in future posts. Thanks!

There are already several such services, the most major being Bitpay. However, with their software as a service model they don't charge a percentage of every transaction, but rather a small recurring fee for using the service. Thus as transaction volume increases costs per transaction decrease.

The major cost for current payment processors (i.e. mastercard, paypal, etc) is that they end up third party mediators in disputes regarding chargebacks. The Bitcoin protocol, which inherently disallows chargebacks, eliminates much of that need, thus the fees decrease. What you're paying for with Bitpay or Coinbase is a piece of software that interacts with the Bitcoin protocol for you, not a traditional payment processor that ends up mediating disputes.

You make a good point. If China shuts off entirely then the potential size of Bitcoin's network could decrease significantly. That's not to say however that Bitcoin doesn't still have a significant and increasing network of users. There have been significant gains outside of China as well recently. A large contributor to the high was resultant from the US Senate Hearings which seemed to somewhat validate Bitcoin's legality in the U.S., the world's largest economy.

I can think of a few reasons... A new approach some merchants have taken is to accept only Bitcoin and thus eliminate payment processing fees. This leads to prices lower than their competitors can reach (stores such as Bitcoinstore.com and Bitcoinin.com). While the 2-3% may not matter much on small purchases, larger orders certainly will.

Another aspect is the peer to peer nature of Bitcoin. With Bitcoin you have the ability to send money to any other Bitcoiner, anywhere, instantly. That simply isn't present with traditional currencies. Now there are some inherent difficulties there. For instance, if I need to send money to my family on the other side of the country I can do it instantly, but they still need to be able to translate Bitcoin to whatever good/service they need. Currently that may require translating it into their local currency by some means, as not all that many local/physical merchants accept Bitcoin yet.

I can and do for many things. Just loaded my namecheap account last night with some more funds, for instance.

Looks like people are using the address to publicize messages now too.

"Public Note: Here's the money you asked for honey; please don't spend it all on strippers and blow like you did the last time. Love Mommy."

It's funny, because there are so many!

Comparing with CIA search trends is equally interesting:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=nsa#q=nsa%2C%20CIA&cm...