Yup. But the reason this is such a big problem for Bitcoin is that Bitcoin has greater aspirations than just being the next tulip or Beanie Baby. It wants to

Yup. But the reason this is such a big problem for Bitcoin is that Bitcoin has greater aspirations than just being the next tulip or Beanie Baby. It wants to be a real currency. And as long as its price is fluctuating like this, you've got to be kind of crazy to be using it as anything but a novel currency. Buyers have every reason to be hesitant to buy things using Bitcoins because of the possibility that the pizza's worth of BTC they could spend today might be worth enough to buy a house in another couple years. If you had a lottery ticket that you had good reason to believe might be a winner, would you trade it for a pizza? I sure wouldn't. On the other side of things, sellers have rational reasons to not accept BTC out of fear that the company's bank account might rapidly diminish in value. The (non-speculative) Bitcoin community is this fascinating caricature of currency situation in old Soviet bloc countries. Practically speaking, dollars are more valuable because of their greater stability. But people go on using the other currency anyway because of politics.