Excellent post. Just one correction -- there are only something like 425,000 addresses with more than 0.01 bitcoin in them, which is probably a reasonable upper

Excellent post. Just one correction -- there are only something like 425,000 addresses with more than 0.01 bitcoin in them, which is probably a reasonable upper limit on the total number of users: http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-address http://bitcoinrichlist.com/charts/bitcoin-distribution-by-ad... It looks to me like speculation is driving exchange services in different countries, which is encouraging arbitrage. Which is pushing us towards a world where one of the huge businesses bitcoin eats is the banking sector's spread on currency convertibility.