I think part of the reason for the dearth of merchant transactions is the lack of a tax safe harbor to treat it like currency, at least for transactions under a

I think part of the reason for the dearth of merchant transactions is the lack of a tax safe harbor to treat it like currency, at least for transactions under a certain size. So long as buying a cup of coffee requires one to keep detailed records and report it as a capital gains, it is really not worth the trouble to use Bitcoin as a currency.