Venture Capitalists Want To Make Bitcoin The 'Next Big Thing'

The three killer apps of Bitcoin will be 1) Donations 2) Nanopayments 3) Electronic and algorithmic trading of stuff we can't trade electronically now

Currently it's mainly money laundering from hacking or dealing drugs, and often misguided investing.

What a lot of people don't understand is that bitcoin does not need to hold its value long term, and that a currency this fungible doesn't need to increase in value when the supply is finite or shrinking (because of hoarding). Merchants adjust their bitcoin prices at a high frequency and charge premiums to buffer the risk.

In the past 6 months according to Mtgox USD prices, at the worst 95th percentile you could loose 6% per day, which is worse than paypal usually, but on average you gained value when holding bitcoin. But as I said that doesn't need to stay that way.