This. The key point is: almost nobody in the real world accepts Bitcoin. It’s become the currency of choice for money-launderers and the underground. But in the day-to-day, it is a non-currency.

This isn’t a case of hoarding the good money and spending the bad. It’s the antithesis of the Aristophenes: the Farmer has refused the Baker’s lesser, lightweight (and new-fangled) coin, knowing it to be of little worth, and will only accept the heavy coin of actual value.

The entirety of Bitcoin’s value is built on speculation. As the enthusiasm of the speculation dwindles and dies, the value will evaporate into the nothing it almost certainly always was.

Nothing against the new technology: and there are probably even great lessons to learn about how real currencies should evolve in electronic format. But without some actual underlying value, it’s just a science experiment.