My prediction: Bitcoin will be remembered as the first successful application of a new wave in decentralized technologies. However Bitcoin itself will not be used except in museums, like the first Google server.
The revolution is how decentralized technologies from the past (BitTorrent, GNUtilla, DHT, etc) met with cryptography and game theory. Even more revolutionary is the wave of consumer-facing cryptographic identity tools, libraries, and browsers. By tying the notion of Public-Private keys to the metaphor of wallets (hence value) incentivizes end-users to keep and protect their keys. Decentralized Internet-level consensus combined with widely distributed cryptographic tools is huge!
Bitcoin's durability for years demonstrated the resiliency of these tools under the pressure of a hostile open Internet. It was the first serious test. And it passed with flying colors.
I DO believe that forks from the Bitcoin network will proliferate for a while. Bitcoin's technical and governance problems will doom it, but the value it has now will be distributed to finance other projects (e.g.: Ethereum) that will move the space and technology forward.
Bitcoin will never go away and certainly won't ever be the product of a museums (What does that even mean?). The problem with your shortsighted line of thinking is that the technology doesn't have to work "as intended" to work. Bitcoin now has global name recognition, every major exchange allows you to exchange it, it's owned by hundreds of thousands of people and it's the most battle tested blockchain in existence. Bitcoin is now essentially a virus that won't be stopped, for as long as there is greed and speculation in this world Bitcoin will continue to spread.
This is not to bash the technology like so many people do here on hacker news (for reasons that are beyond me, this forum used to like cool technology, idk what happened (see the down-votes this post will get as testament to that)) I think bitcoin is good for the world. Bitcoin could be the answer to the consumer and national debt crisis the world faces because it's a form of currency that actually has a limited supply.
If you think this technology is going anywhere except into the wallets of millions of human beings all over the world for the betterment of finance then you're sadly mistaken and I'd be willing to bet you on it. Bitcoin doesn't die.
What happens when most of the governments declare Bitcoin mining and trading illegal? South Korea is already acting on it. China has raided mining stations in the past. Even Indian government is planning on taking harse stance against bitcoin exchanges in India and bitcoin holders. What happens when you are not able to trade bitcoin legally at all? This will hinder growth of Bitcoin community.
Not sure about it passing with flying colors though. Currently, it is fundamentally failing at the job it was created to do.
Where I think it's been very valuable is that it has been properly stressed. We now have a good understanding regarding the parts that worked well, the parts that worked but were a bit crap and the parts that were a complete disaster.
Hopefully, when the infants and morons go find some other shiny, shiny, cooler heads will pick up the pieces and build Bitcoin 2 with some of these problems fixed.
My hope is that the hype train grinds to a halt rather than plunges off a cliff taking the idea with it. It was as good idea but with limitations that could, possibly, be rectified.
Financially it will continue to be a bubble machine and generate periodic spikes and pops that cross successive powers of ten in BTC:USD until in a decade or so it reaches a couple or a dozen trillion or so market cap ($750K/$1Million : 1 bitcoin). After that governments will start to really get worried and it's anyone's game. A few people with new obscene wealth will change a little bit in the world, but in general nothing will change.
Governments are already quite worried. If it reaches the 10s of trillions marketcap it may be too late for them to stop it. And you’re not understanding the scope if you think that means nothing will change.
I'm looking at the scope of generations, of centuries. By nothing I mean the human condition will still persist. Power will momentarily move from some families to others. Some will have enlightened ideas about how to treat the vulnerable, and a few will enact it. But that's about it. Power will continue to corrupt.
Bitcoin will be doing something for a few years. Possibly high volatility which continuously decreases. But with a few peaks of excitement (positive and negative) when breakthroughs or breakdowns are announced.
Then, at some point it will start. At first only small transactions that nobody really notices. Very small hints. People ensuring that their wallet cannot have been hacked. Nobody believes them. Nobody really realizes that large cashouts are commenced.
Then rumours spread that indeed strange transfers exist. Transactions nobody can explain. Even the 7500 coins, believed to be lost on a UK waste dump, are now moving again. The cashouts increase. Rumours about a critical flaw in the concept of bitcoin circulate.
It will take some time. Then the realization sets in. Somebody out there has a quantum computer equipped with enough qbits to break ecdsa-256...
I was watching Bloomberg Davos live streaming. Every major Bank’s CEO was asked about their take on Bitcoin. It was like hearing a chorus, everyone was praising the block chain but no one had anything positive to say about bitcoin apart from the fact that it worked. Some pointed out the inefficiency of bitcoin to scale, which was quite impressive.
What do you think will be future of Bitcoin 4 or 5 years down the line. I am not talking about cryptocurrency or blockchain, just bitcoin specifically. After hitting heights it has became more of a commodity/stock rather than a currency.
I think it'll continue to be a very volatile store of value. For as long as there is greed in this world the price will continue to fluctuate. The key is that the supply gets cut in half every four years, so theoretically, as long as people continue to want to purchase bitcoin it will get more valuable with time.
Not sure right now, we will see what happens with the lightning network and if that can help solve the speed and cost issue. As far as the price goes, hopefully it will bounce back after this shill...
The revolution is how decentralized technologies from the past (BitTorrent, GNUtilla, DHT, etc) met with cryptography and game theory. Even more revolutionary is the wave of consumer-facing cryptographic identity tools, libraries, and browsers. By tying the notion of Public-Private keys to the metaphor of wallets (hence value) incentivizes end-users to keep and protect their keys. Decentralized Internet-level consensus combined with widely distributed cryptographic tools is huge!
Bitcoin's durability for years demonstrated the resiliency of these tools under the pressure of a hostile open Internet. It was the first serious test. And it passed with flying colors.
I DO believe that forks from the Bitcoin network will proliferate for a while. Bitcoin's technical and governance problems will doom it, but the value it has now will be distributed to finance other projects (e.g.: Ethereum) that will move the space and technology forward.