People weened on CNBC and other breathless, 24/7 financial news give way too much credence to short-term market flutterings and twitterings.
Something that can trace its ancestry in a vague way to Bitcoin? Maybe. Bitcoin itself? Exceedingly unlikely.
On the other hand I suppose the existence of Silk Road is not sufficient to drive prices up, because most vendors will just convert their BTC to dollars again immediately.
Right now Bitcoin has a controlled monetary inflation of 30% a year. Its user base isn't growing. It's actually shrinking if you count the speculators as "users".
I agree with other comments, right now it might be better to hold dollars. Also gold, despite it's depreciation lately.
I think Bitcoin will survive. I can see the African diaspora using it in the near future because it's cheaper. Bitcoin won't go up in US dollars at least until some 1st world country devaluates its currency severely, and people start looking for options.
Swiss Francs, CAD, and even USD are much safer if stability is your concern. If the Euro indeed collapses as you seem to fear, you may even find yourself making gains.
(Maybe not the ammo, in Europe. Get a bat.)
Switzerland is an ideal banking country in geopolitical terms. It borders with three major economies, but is also an easily defendable mountain fortress. It has remained largely undisturbed because it would simply cost too much to invade.
That's why, for hundreds of years, it has been a banking mecca. Europe has been wracked by war for centuries, during which banking houses are periodically plundered by invading armies. But Switzerland with its defensive advantages and long history of neutrality rises above the noise. If you're a rich European, the safest place to park your money in the past 1000 years has been Switzerland.
Once you truly get it, most comments become irrelevant.
Usually you get better fare from the Economist.
I guess this requires a trusted central third party as an eschew to hold the fund for the email recipent and for verifying the recipent's account via email.
Then the payer can transfer funds to it, using a transaction that requires signing with keys that only the payer knows and can pass to the payee directly. Bitcoin transactions can also have timeouts and have the inputs locked while the outputs are still floating.
Now, if you really wants to make it right - buy water blocks for your cards, route water pipes outside your building and mine :) AC will thank you :)
