Honestly it's mostly hype, Bitcoin isn't a serious transaction medium yet. I remember seeing an article proclaiming 6000 or 7000 sales through Bitpay on Bitcoin Black Friday as proof that we're a real ecosystem.
No, a couple sales per minute on a special day does NOT make a payment system worth $12-13B. That's like a fucking Girl Scout cookie stand.
We've passed Western Union at ~$9B market cap, and they process 28 transactions per second, every day.
Right now Bitcoin is a store of value. The value comes from Bitcoin's future potential as a currency and payment system. Lots of businesses will sign up because it's free and it saves them money; the hard part is convincing people to buy and spend bitcoins if:
A) it's going up constantly and they'll have more money if they wait, and
B) if the currency is extremely volatile.
We know A) will eventually resolve itself if the system grows to maturity. There is a limit to all growth.
The doubt was about B), and my doubts are disappearing.
Exactly how much aggravation, eye-gouging fees, delays, noise, fuss, AML rubber-gloving would someone get from WU if they tried to send $147 million on a Sunday night, across the planet, person-to-person, and wanted it to arrive in seconds, irrevocably confirmed in an hour?
WU is Dead Man Walking right now.
