The reason it's so hard for most people to understand Bitcoin is that most people don't really understand money. Money isn't wealth. It's an accounting system to facilitate the exchange of wealth. Money is a means for credibly conveying information about value given but not yet received (or at least not yet received in a form in which it can directly satisfy a person's wants or needs). To put it yet another way, money is a ledger. With fiat currencies like the dollar, that ledger is centralized. And that gives the central authority responsible for keeping that ledger tremendous power, power that history has proven will inevitably be abused. With Bitcoin, the ledger is decentralized. And that means that no one individual or entity has the power to arbitrarily create new units (thereby causing inflation), freeze (or seize) your account, or block a particular payment from being processed. We've had decentralized money before. For example, no one can simply print new gold into existence. And the "ledger" of gold is distributed because the physical gold itself (the "accounting entries" in the metaphor) is distributed. But with gold, that decentralization comes at a heavy price (literally). The corporeal nature of gold makes it hugely inefficient from a transactional perspective. Enter Bitcoin. It is the world's first decentralized, digital currency. It is more reliably-scarce than gold, more transactionally-efficient than "modern" digital banking, and enables greater financial privacy than cash. It could certainly still fail for one reason or another, but if it doesn't, it has the potential to be very, VERY disruptive.

"Plus, I remain convinced that bitcoin is little more than a collectible, akin to Beanie Babies or baseball cards"

Yes, a non-inflationary digital currency that has no counter-party risks, that can be transferred globally and near instantaneously with minimal fees is similar to Beanie Babies and baseball cards. Gimme a break!

We did a little demonstration where we passed a half a bitcoin (66 dollars back in may) around the world. 10 international transactions in less than 2 hours. For a distance of three times around the world. In the end, the full 66 dollars went to the One Foundation (disaster relief in China).

If Bitcoins have no advantages at all, then do that with Beanie Babies, Baseball cards, or even dollars. I'd love to hear how you would do that.

http://brownzings.blogspot....

It is interesting how some people have this sort of mental block that prevents them from accepting the utility of Bitcoin. I have been going back and forth for months with this one guy and he has a different reason it will fail every single time I talk with him. While he spent all this time coming up with reasons it wouldn't work I spent my time making a profit.

Spending it freely: Gyft on your mobile phone. You can buy a $2000 gift card from Gyft using Bitcoin in seconds.

In reality, spending Bitcoin is increasingly easy. Buying Bitcoin is the problem.

Actually there are lots of places to buy Bitcoin. I don't have it handy but there's a list of folks who sell Bitcoin.

People can also earn free Bitcoins by performing tasks such as watching a 3 minute video. Your bitcoin payment is sent directly to your secure wallet. I need to check my wallet as a matter of fact. I set up a site that earns Bitcoins for me.

There are stores and merchants all over the world who accept it for payment. Wouldn't that be something if world currencies crashed and the only folks with money are those who own Bitcoin. Laugh if you must, but don't laugh too hard. Stranger things have been known to happen.

I almost forgot, there's a bitcoin debit card available too. Coins can be converted to your country's currency, deposited to a debit card and a little trip to the ATM is the final result. and I'm putting a link to this article on my bitcoin site where I have lots of other articles about it.

Let it bubble and pop. New people get jumpy about this, but watch for a couple cycles and you'll see the momentum.

"Just because you can’t spend it freely doesn’t mean it can’t go up in value."

I don't even have to comment on that.

res ispa loquitur

Plenty of folks also lose a tremendous amount of money investing in collectibles. There are many stories out there of unwise people who put their retirement funds into Beanie Babies certain that it would make them rich beyond their wildest imagination.

Bankrupt By Beanies: http://youtu.be/PgDsyj5eLmo

"I was doing it for a college education, which never happened because......well....I lost a lot of money"

If you're interested or thinking about mining your own bitcoins, best place I'd recommend picking up some hardware would be http://www.minersource.net. Good starting point there. After a while you can probably expand your mining farm and pick up a decent amount of Bitcoins.