A little bit off topic: I was curious if you can really do something with bitcoins aside from speculation. It turns out that there are some places that accept bitcoins. But it seems that actually _using_ bitcoins as a currency instead of a speculative asset doesn't seem like a good idea right now:

The sites seem to either try to adjust prices often, or don't. The sites that don't are hopelessly overpriced: Let's say I want the biggest vps for sale at http://lightfoot.dashjr.org/?page=vps . I can either go through the hassle of buying 49 bitcoins for ~1450$ at mtgox to pay for the vps, or I could pay 118$ directly. Even the sites that adjust the price have a huge problem: If I convert dollars to bitcoins, I would be tempted to wait a couple of days and sell on mtgox and then buy the service with dollars.

So, buying stuff with bitcoins is not the best idea right now. If you want to do something with bitcoins, buy them and sell them at a higher exchange rate later. The only problem is that we all know that this can't go on forever. Therefore, the exchange rate is bound to go down sooner or later. If that happens, we would be in a mirror inverted situation: Selling stuff for bitcoins would suck. Prices would have to reflect the overhead of continuously adjusting prices and converting bitcoins, putting them at a disadvantage against "real" currency.

Price instability is poisonous for a currency. Some aspects of bitcoins lead to excessive speculation, and therefore, prices will always be unstable, therefore, there is no incentive to use bitcoins as a way to buy or sell (legal) goods.