I;ve played the forex market for a couple of years, plus the bitcoin is getting a little more main stream, but i know of a few people that mine, buy/sell bitcoins.. Also, there is a couple poker sites that just use bitcoins, so there are lots of reasons to use it....(not to mention the site like ebay that just uses the bitcoin, cant remember the name, but the bitcoin is starting to gain some momentum in the main stream... Honestly, I think more illegal things are purchased via paypal, wu and moneygram MUCH more than with the bitcoin.. Bitcon just got much more popular when SR got in the news.. Before SR got big, people used the bitcoin for buying downloadable stuff all the time (music, programs, etc), (but the bitcoin was worth less than a dollar, lol)