At this stage in BTC there is a serious problem with consumer adoption of BTC.
If you look at the growth charts, the past was fueled by consumer adoption for silk road IMO.
If you wanted to buy on SR you had to convert fiat into btc.
Then silk road got busted, the news about it fueled some spec money and also gave enough press to make some merchants accept it.
Now here we are almost a year later on what should be a viral growth opportunity and BTC value is going the wrong way since high at end of 2013.
Look at btc with a blank mind, you have zero knowledge of the coin, you go to Overstock, you buy something, you see visa/mc/ax and paypal then you see bitcoin
Remember you have a blank mind, you maybe heard of it in the news and silk road or investors loosing their btc
Now name one reason for any 'average consumer' that gets a check weekly or twice a month, to say to themselves, hmmm, bitcoin, what is that, why do I need bitcoin to pay Overstock for my purchase?
Remember this is average joe blow consumer who is broke, he/shee lives off CREDIT CARDS, they have no real savings nor stocks, they get a minor wage from a faceless corp and every penny is accounted for by the gov they live in jurisdiction of.
That's the average nobody on the net, average broke a$$ nobody with a nothing job and no real money.
Now before SR got busted, what fueled the 'consumer' growth was here is where you can buy your drugs ON LINE, oh you need btc.
So that bought into btc a lot of people with money to acquire btc for one reason, joe consumer on SR had to acquire btc to play the game on SR.
Feds bust SR and news goes out and you have some spec money thrown into the mix, then you have some big companies say let's take this and turn it into fiat, more spec money comes in, but what item is now you must have btc to buy it? Nothing
Just follow the stock reports from Overstock, they mention btc, and they mention how bad it is, less than 1% of sales, that is NOTHING, not even a reason for a retailer to retool and take it.
So step away from 'your knowledge' about btc, put yourself into the mind of joe blow nobody broke a$$ consumer, give that person one easily understood reason why they need to jump through all the hoops of BUYING btc.
No compelling reason for a consumer to buy btc to then buy stuff, no reason for btc price to keep rising, that's why December 2013 it was 1100 btc and now it's in the 300's.
The appeal of 'anonymous' transactions do not apply to joe blow average consumer, the reason, they have no secrets, they go to a job the gov knows they have, they get a wage deposited into their petty bank account the gov knows they have, that is their life, they are typical broke wage earners. Most of them can't afford a drug habit, the broke people with drug habits end up being forced to become criminals to afford their drug habits, the elite professionals who have drug habits aren't an elite professional for long, they burn out fast.
Silk Road IMO fueled btc acceptance by a very small segment of society and today when a big merchant puts up a shingle like Overstock and says we take btc, so what, less than 1% of their sales are btc, it's in their stock reports they must file.
All the bs btc propaganda that every bitbot spews about why you must have btc is bs to THE AVERAGE CONSUMER.
Oh, fiat is worthless, so is btc, everything is, unless enough people agree fiat, gold, silver or btc have a value and trade with it, otherwise everything has no value.
Oh, your gov is about to crash and burn, yeah we hear that all the time
Oh, you gov knows everything you do, don't you want anonymous money, why the person is a broke wage earner and the gov knows every penny they have
Oh, your trans is secure, really assuming they have a brain and don't have a million viruses on their computer or phone
Oh, it's a great investment, really 1100 bucks 9 months and now it's in the 300's what drug are YOU ON
How many big retailers have to put up bitcoin signs here and sell almost nothing via btc before you all understand, if bitcoin wallets are not filled with btc on mega-millions of users laptops, having merchants take bitcoin means nothing, you need a legion of consumers with bitcoin money ready to buy and these consumers are usually broke and need credit cards to buy stuff.
SR didn't offer drugs for credit card transactions they offered btc trades, so that fueled consumers buying btc
I would call the Overstock adoption of bitcoin now a proven FAILURE, they got in near the high of 1100 bucks and now its in the 300's.
So merchant adoption has moved the value of btc backwards if anything.
You need consumers to acquire btc and then you need consumers buying stuff with it for btc to become a 'currency'.
Right now btc is only a spec investment IMO, and that investment has lost 70% of its value since it peaked end of 2013.
Go ahead cry well the 'history of btc is long term growth', can you say BULL SH*T
There is no long term history of bitcoin, the history of bitcoin was it was fueled by silk road, when silk road crashed and burned, the media ran with bitcoin stories for a while and it fuled some minor spec money
Now that spec money lost 70% of what they put into bitcoin end of 2013
There is simply no great need for any consumer to acquire btc and then to use it
Some people buy today and think btc is an investment, that means they don't spend it, that means it's not a currency
Now to me, the 'idea' of btc has appeal, but I'm not a broke a$$ wage earner, I'm more of what they call the .1% the cream of the 1%.
So I own btc, I have companies I control that take it, it does NOTHING in the real world, people press pay with credit card or paypal, they have no bitcoin to use and if they did they look at it as a commodity like gold you save it, that means btc is not a currency.
Now before you all cast some stones, who am I?
Here's my phone log from this morning
Curator of Smithsonian called
Curator of British Museum called
Spoke to the CEO of one of the top 5 publishing houses in the world
Spoke to senior partner at a major lawfirm
Spoke to editor of a major news org
So I guess my opinion and my words don't mean that much.
Now sell the average consumer one real reason they need to go out and try to acquire bitcoin and then consume goods with it.
If you can't do that, YOU HAVE NO CURRENCY as to btc.