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Comment by moe | Hacker News Reader

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moe·

It has grown by a factor of 4 in the past two years (visible when you switch to the 2 year or 'all time' scale).

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That hardly tells anything about consumer adoption though, but about trade volume.

That's true. Still 100% growth per year is not exactly 'no growth'.

Absolutely, but the numbers are still incredibly low. The customer adoption is only at a few thousand transactions per day. Those numbers would have to go up at least hundredfold for Bitcoin to be taken seriously as a currency.

Bitcoin is only 4 years old. Maybe it just takes a little longer to take over Visa in transaction volume? I really don't know what people like you expected.

If it proceeds to double in size every year then the numbers will stop being 'incredibly low' very soon.

The point is it isn't doubling every year. Averaged over 4 years it has but over the past 12 months it hasn't grown at all.

Apparently they don't have to go up at all for it be taken seriously by Newegg, Overstock, Dish, and Tiger Direct.

That's true, and every time a new company begins accepting it, there is a slurry of stories about it in tech publications.

I'm surprised more retailers, particularly those specializing in tech, haven't begun accepting bitcoin. They can accept it on terms they dictate and it's easy publicity.

You don't the publicity is more important than the amount of commerce transacted on it? Every one of these companies get the press when they indicate they accept bitcoin. I remain skeptical as to how many are doing any sort of volume in bitcoin transaction

The biggest problem with Bitcoin being taken seriously as a currency is its investment value. If there is anyone using it to pay for goods and services, then they are most likely buying back the amount they spent. So there is not much reason to use this on sites like newegg.

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