are these being used for anything other than buying drugs online?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage

Poker

edit: actually I'm playing bitcoin poker and drinking coffee I bought with coins right now.

I don't know if this has been posted, but someone is minting physical bitcoins.

https://www.casascius.com/

Good article about the rise and fall of bitcoin: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/

looking for around 300$ in bitcoins, prefer to pay with pokerstars $.

edit: can also pay with paypal if needed.. or moneybookers(I have a lot of previous swaps and recently held and paid out 15k$ for a propbet, so chargeback is not a worry).

Looking to buy $500+ in Bitcoins, and probably a lot more in the near future. Can pay with Stars or Neteller.

Have previously sold a lot of bitcoins to several different members here.

What are you guys using these coins for?

There's vig-free sports betting between 2+2ers at BTCSportsMatch. Silk Road (guide), poker, IT services, international money transfers, and price speculation are the big reasons to have bitcoins. A big list of legal merchants is here.

how is the volume on btcsportsmatch?

Major events and NFL games can be decent but it varies wildly. Really should be more popular than it is right now given all the scammers in the sports betting threads on here, in addition to all the accounting and transfer hassles.

But some third rate sportsbook site, no scammers or hackers there!

Personally, I think there's a significant difference between posting up at a site associated with trusted 2+2 members (with an incentive not to jeopardize a profitable sister site and reputation) and some of things that have gone on in the MSNL and HSNL sports threads.

dead/failed voluntary currency

crazy its up to 4.47 in a few mins since i posted that

8 months, up over 500%. i might get back in with this move, maybe some of the ideas and implementations that got started right around the boom are finally gaining traction.
i did try (and give up) on bitcoin poker. shame that hasn't gotten more popular than ridic sites like bodog and cake

I think the bitcoin is going to featured in a "The Good Wife" t.v. episode. However a 1100% 2011 gain in bitcoin is not bad. Better than silver or gold. I lot of new stuff, new qt based client, merged mining with namecoin, multibit light client, bitcoinjs, encrypted wallets, fpga miners, and new exchanges. No hassle micro internet currency.

Bitcoin bubble 2.0?

I haven't seen too much in the way of legit business being done in BTC. I wonder how much is being done in drugs and gambling.

i held on to $50, just in case =/

seems like everyone writing articles on bitcoin is clueless.
guy has claimed bitcoin is dead twice already. now thinks it can compete with western union.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...-be-afraid.ars

I cant see a "bubble" happening any time soon. Realistically the only big thing that could happen to bitcoin right now would be a major US gambling site accepting bitcoins. If bodog started taking bitcoins that would be huge, but even something as logical as that is still highly unlikely.

he doesn't mention silk road, which could be Bitcoin's only use and still be enough for it to become successful.

The western union thing has been mentioned before by one of the big developers (who also is a poker player). On the outside, it makes sense, there are huge fees involved.

What he doesn't get is why those fees are there. First, there is overhead in maintaining a store. There are also tremendous taxes involved in the process. The only way around this is by not having overhead (people getting bitcoins are on their own with them), or hiding from taxes.

Bitcoin will do well in places where it needs to be hidden from governments and oppression. As a legitimate tool of commerce, it will be much harder to compete until those other areas grow tremendously. That's not to say it won't happen, but black/grey markets and tax avoidance will be the biggest growth area for bitcoins.

Seeing as how now the http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzinga...-in-the-world/ second largest economy in the world is now black/grey market that's a lot of growth potential IMO. Oh yeah, and we're back above $5, I'm reloading

Bubble 2.0 here we go again!

Bitcoin started out as a "deflationary spiral" scam...
And worked because elements of it were truly unique...
And a Teen Cult was methodically built around it.

Now that we've had the "deflationary spiral"...
And the founders have made off with the money...
Bitcoin is pretty much a dead carcass...
With massive security holes you could drive a truck through...
Maybe some new scammers can pump and dump it.

As for any big, legit business...
They don't need BitCoin and it's baggage...
Cryptocurrencies are gonna be a dime a dozen...
These things are open source...
Anyone with a dozen engineers can play the game...
For a currency to work you MUST HAVE trusted Central Authority...
BitCoin's biggest lie was that you don't need one.

Being young...
And pretending the wheel has not been invented...
By claiming wagons, cars, jets, spacecraft don't work...
Let's be "geniuses" and re-invent it all again...
Well, there you have the BitCoin hallucination.