I co-founded a software as a service ecommerce shopping cart company which now services thousands of stores. We were one of the first platforms to integrate with Bitpay back in 2013 so all of those merchants could now easily accept bitcoin. Almost none of the merchants bothered to turn it on. We also accept bitcoin as a method of payment for FoxyCart services and in the past three years only one (1) user ever paid us in bitcoin.

Merchants only care about what their customers demand. I blogged about bitcoin from our company website, and we emailed all of our stores about it and they just didn't care because their customers weren't throwing bitcoin at them. It was a solution to a problem they weren't experiencing.

This is why I also think Steemit could be the first killer app for mass adoption of cryptocurrency. My wife, after three years of me trying, created her first bitcoin wallet because of Steemit. She came here for the photography contests (thanks @jamtaylor!), and she likes fighting plagiarism and identity theft.

If Steemit survives as a social media platform (many others have tried and failed), then the inevitable result is cryptocurrency in the hands of many, many people.

Very well written, @dollarvigilante. This is, so far, one of the best pieces I've seen explaining the importance of this experiment. I'm happy to be here with you to enjoy the ride.