Under whatever metric we evaluate bitcoin ,
By consumer adoption, by merchant adoption, by use value, venture capital invested etc, etc,
it seems finally that the price is the single largest indicator of its success or failure! period
because even when other metrics are low and price is in an upswing everybody praise bitcoin but when every other metric is good and price is down then everybody calls bitcoin a failure like they call now..
Bitcoin to reach mainstream the truth is the price has to go to moon like nov13...the only people will flock to bitcoin..
No matter bitcoin gets accepted by Microsoft today and Facebook tomorrow! still mainstream people wont give a shit about bitcoins!
But a craze that price will increase like the dotcom bubble will flock people in and make it successful!
At the Federal Reserve of WIP (name change pending) we are performing evaluation of the basis for online currency systems. In line with requests, we are working on rolling out parts of the system that are much higher-throughput than up through today. (And for the moment WIP transfers have been left pending.) We would like to get it right.
We have some indicator metrics that can be used to evaluate Bitcoin as well as our currency and any other.
Firstly, for background, the price metric is interesting, but not the single largest indicator of the success of any currency. If the price of something in very short supply temporarily hits astronomical heights due to shortage (only), this price would not indicate any level of "success". For example, if some perishable goods begin being sold at very high prices during a hurricane, this would not indicate that it has become "successful". So this example shows that price alone is not an indication of success.
Another example would be securities bubbles in which a security temporarily trades at very large multiples of certain fundamental figures. You mention Venture Capitalists. An example of a stock that has gone down very significantly since IPO is Zynga -
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ZNGAIts price and volume of trading were high, following which it lost the majority of its trading value.
Our evaluation of Bitcoin focuses primarily on its competitive outlook as a global Internet currency over the next 10 years. In this sense, certain fundamental aspects of the currency become more important than any metrics that can be tracked without analysis.
I am happy to answer follow-up questions if you have any.
Chairman, Federal Reserve of WIP
