Barring political* or technical malfeasance, I expect the price of bitcoins to increase radically over the next 10 years. People are desperate, I am desperate, for a currency that doesn't evaporate over time to inflation. Bitcoin's falling rate of creation, hard limit on maximum number of coins, and "destroyed" coins are very attractive in this way.
In my country, every dollar in bank savings gets leveraged 6 times. The bank loans out my dollar to six different people. This "creates" six dollars for each of my one. Further, the central monetary authority creates 80 billion dollars per month to give to banks to make loans. The banks turn around and loan that money out six times over, creating a half-trillion dollars per month. The dollar that I have, that I worked for, becomes worth less day after day. With Bitcoin, that doesn't happen. Here is a picture that explains this
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2Political malfeasance is the cause most likely to devalue Bitcoin. Central monetary authorities will not easily give up the power to create wealth from nothing. The cited cause will be "preventing money laundering", "enforcing economic sanctions" or my personal favorite "preventing terrorism"; the root cause will be the unending human lust for power.
