With respect, the press is regularly quoting how many places now 'accept bitcoin' but it is all really a vanity metric. I know it is difficult to know how much these merchant accounts get used without internal information from the providers themselves, but from all internal accounts I have heard, the usage is dismal. For no surprising reason customers are generally disinterested in purchasing anything with Bitcoin that they can already purchase with their credit card.

I think Bitcoin is going to be revolutionary but the application is lacking - entrepreneurs really need to find a real world application where the use of Bitcoin actually improves the experience. Remittances and International Money Transfers are the first legal industry I can think of where that will work, but businesses in that area need time to grow and navigate the uncertain regulatory environment before Bitcoin will actually see adoption that really means something.