Bitcoin isn't useful, aside from speculating, day trading, and online gambling. People aren't using bitcoins to buy things online, unless they already had some to begin with! What we're seeing now is a domino effect of investors losing faith, one by one, because merchant adoption has finally happened, but the general public still doesn't care!
When the price stops rallying up, there's nothing left to look forward to anymore!
People bought beanies because they were told they were sure to rise in value.
People bought bitcoin because they were told they were sure to rise in value.
IT'S.THE.SAME.THING!
Ah, the old 'moving goal post' maneuver...
Let's go back 1 year or so: "Merchants will never adopt Bitcoin. They have no incentive to do so!"
Today: "Okay, so quite a few merchants accept Bitcoin, and Bitpay/Coinbase make it possible to pay with Bitcoin even if a merchant doesn't accept them yet, but customers will never adopt them because they have no incentive to do so!
We'll see. Next likely step before customer adoption: merchants giving those incentives to pay in Bitcoin, effectively splitting the gains from lower transactions cost with customers in the form of rebates.