That's actually where I stopped reading and switched over to these comments. It seems obvious to me that according to "conventional thought" without the exchang

That's actually where I stopped reading and switched over to these comments. It seems obvious to me that according to "conventional thought" without the exchanges bitcoins would lose all value. Without the exchanges, you can only use bitcoins for a few things, mostly drugs and online services (hosting, usenet, vpn, etc). The thing is, these services will stop accepting bitcoins, because the operators will no longer be able to convert them into USD. Until you can buy food and gas and pay your bills with bitcoins, their value will rely on the existence of some kind of btc/"real currency" exchange.