Ask HN: Will Bitcoin ever go mainstream?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7972274I've been reading a lot of Bitcoin discussion on bitcointalk lately and it frustrates me how misinformed most Bitcoin "evangelists" are on the economics that are critical to Bitcoin's future. Most of these people see Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a thing to "buy low and sell high" thinking they are more of a stock than a currency. If there opinion represents a majority of Bitcoin owners, then we can expect a huge devaluation of Bitcoin in the next couple of years as they start to "cash out" as the prices increases significantly. I think this is speculator mentality is a factor in the extraordinarily high variation in the exchange rate of BTC/USD compared with relatively low variation in the exchange rate of EUR/USD.
This has me worried about the future of Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin and its derivatives have a lot of potential as a future currency but the way that people treat it now worries me. For Bitcoin to have a future it needs to be used by people in the same way that we dollars and euros day to day. People need to start buying more things with Bitcoin, get paid with Bitcoin, and keep savings and money market accounts in Bitcoin. We need to start "thinking" in Bitcoin like we think in dollars. But, the high changes in price scare adoption of Bitcoin. Why would I buy a laptop for 2 BTC when tomorrow that laptop could only cost 1.5 BTC because the value of BTC changed over night?
What is your opinion on the Bitcoin's future as a true currency? Is my concern valid or will the power of the technology trump the speculators in the long run? Can anyone point me to resources that go beyond the "speculator mentality" that has started to plague BT and various "Bitcoin evangelist" magazines?