jdoliner's comment is interesting, because it's almost true. At the time, hardly anyone could find faith in the currency. But what he failed to understand that if "someone" could find faith in the currency, then others would follow.<p>It's an interesting property of markets that they can seemingly boostrap themselves, just so long as there is support during the initial growth stage. You don't have to believe in Bitcoins to trade in them, you just have to believe someone wants them. This might be why black markets and transaction privacy are so essential to making the currency work. Since there are a large number of people who need to make their payments private, the rest of the market believes that the currency has intrinsic value in its exclusivity in certain transactions.