the problem with the online currency is that it was built by us individuals familiar with the process. Grandma can't invest $300,000 of her 6 million dollar inheritance in bitcoins because she doesn't know what a wallet.dat is, she doesn't understand how to send money to an address that stretches across the screen, and she's NOT going to SSH into anything. She's not even going to understand what peer to peer is. Websites just magically appear to her with no understanding of how it works.
Anyone that can't understand how to SSH into anything is not going to be able to assess just how likely the online wallet they're using is to be full of gaping security holes - especially ones of the subtle Bitcoin-specific kind that MyBitcoins claimed they had. They certainly won't know how to use tools like Whois to figure out how easily the owner could run away with their hundredsd of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins, and probably won't realise the implications of (for example) dealing with companies registered in Nevis. Why should we be encouraging people to act in a way they can't rationally assess the risks of again?
But she could increase the price of bitcoins and make them far more valid of a currency by depositing $300,000 USD into bitcoins. She might even use them to buy something from an ecommerce site that accepts bitcoins, or she may also have a meal at Meze Grill in New York, if she could figure how to pay them in bitcoins. Asking her to lug her laptop in and send to a huge address isn't going to help matters.
Ah yes, of course, because it'll help increase the value of our own bitcoins. Why did I even bother asking.
