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Comment by kiba | Hacker News Reader

This is either a bubble or probably the most awesome J-curve of the decade.

Either way, I am waiting to see what happens. I have more than enough bitcoin for a black swan hedge. I am also going to be with bitcoin to the bitter end or the ultimate victory over state-controlled monetary system.

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"This is either a bubble or probably the most awesome J-curve of the decade."

The average American isn't smart enough to understand what bitcoin is, how it works, how to buy them, how to spend them, etc. In five years bitcoin is going to be just another failed standard like i-names or GPG, something that doesn't ever get used except for in very niche enterprise usecases or when nerds are trying to impress other nerds.

The average person isn't smart enough to understand what a stock market is, how it works and how to buy/sell stocks, either. That doesn't mean they're not used.

The reason they are used is that there is an entire abstraction layer around it, all you have to do is give your money to the guy whose face is on the billboard. As a crypto currency, bitcoin is fundamentally incompatible with this model.

There's nothing to prevent that level of abstraction being built around bitcoin. The average credit card user doesn't understand what's going on in the background, just that money from their bill is transferred to the merchant.

Why would bitcoin stays hard to use and hard to learn?

1. Average person knows how to use paypal (or thinks they know).

2. Setup paypal like web-interface for bitcoin e-wallets.

3. ...

4. Profit!

Have a look at the official bitcoin application and the paypal panel. There is not much difference and bitcoin panel actually is simpler since you can do less actions there.

If GPG is a failure, I'd say failure is looking pretty good.

Must mean it's time for me to write that "Get in on the Bitcoin Revolution" book.

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