This article is short but nails the biggest bitcoin hurdle I can see at the moment.
The intrinsic value of currency is given by the services and tangible products it can buy.
With a USD (or EUR or GBP or whatever) you can buy virtually everything (except, maybe, love and happiness :)), while it it wasn't for the possibility to exchange bitcoins for "actual" money, the amount of things you could buy with them would be virtually nothing, as of today.
Want to buy an Ipod from an Apple store ? You can't.
Renew your WoW account ? You can't.
Buy at Amazon ? You can't.
The only way to do that is to either go through middlemen that offers the same, or similar, products/services secondhand or exchange bitcoins for cash. And both services will disappear in a blink, if they will find they can't exchange their bitcoins for cash.
The only way I can see bitcoins to take off indefinitely is that its economy of services/products you can buy with them will grow to a point that its intrinsic value will be enough for the people to stick with them, regardlessly of the possibilit to exchange them.
But we are talking years, I doubt they will be given such breathing space.
The intrinsic value of currency is given by the services and tangible products it can buy.
With a USD (or EUR or GBP or whatever) you can buy virtually everything (except, maybe, love and happiness :)), while it it wasn't for the possibility to exchange bitcoins for "actual" money, the amount of things you could buy with them would be virtually nothing, as of today.
Want to buy an Ipod from an Apple store ? You can't. Renew your WoW account ? You can't. Buy at Amazon ? You can't.
The only way to do that is to either go through middlemen that offers the same, or similar, products/services secondhand or exchange bitcoins for cash. And both services will disappear in a blink, if they will find they can't exchange their bitcoins for cash.
The only way I can see bitcoins to take off indefinitely is that its economy of services/products you can buy with them will grow to a point that its intrinsic value will be enough for the people to stick with them, regardlessly of the possibilit to exchange them.
But we are talking years, I doubt they will be given such breathing space.