Earlier I posted comments on the bitcoin phenomenon and mentioned its meteoric rise this year, which was then 17 times and went up shortly afterwards to roughly 19 times. As a follow-up, bitcoin is down this week from nearly 19,000 to about 13,200 and is down 15% today alone.
This underscores the main problem with bitcoin being a viable digital currency at this point. Some merchants may be glad to accept payment in something going up several percent in a day, but when its value can drop 15% in a day, they may find that to be a much different story.
I also want to correct the statement in my previous post that Gyft accepts bitcoins for buying gift cards as was mentioned in other articles I read. I called Gyft and was told that they do not accept bitcoins as payment for gift cards. Some of the household names articles have listed as accepting bitcoins were probably listed because people thought they could buy gift cards for those merchants Gyft, which is not the case.