Bitcoin has a seen a fairly significant attraction and interest lately. So much so that the US government has had to have panels and discussions spanning several topics and implications pertain to bitcoins. It has already seen some adoption in regular culture as shops are beginning to accept bitcoins as a form of payment for goods and services.
Bitcoins value has been growing exponentially over the past few years and who knows when that will stop. I personally think this is due to people using it as an speculative market with the hopes of making some 'easy' money (I say easy because there are various ways of getting money or gaining bitcoins with little effort). Since bitcoin's monetary value is so highly speculative currently, its widespread adoption as a currency may take a while until its value is somewhat stable.