I think we could have a pop if something scares everybody off from Bitcoin again, but that's a big if.
Last year, few realized that bitcoins could be stolen in hacks. That freaked a lot of people out. This year, everyone knows that they can be stolen and hacked, and that they can also be protected. Someone gets hacked, and the market correctly says ho-hum, since it understands that the risk of hacking can be mitigated with cold wallets, and correctly realizes that any successful theft probably had much to do with mismanaging wallets.
I see MtGox as the biggest factor in Bitcoin's short-term future. I sincerely hope nothing bad happens to MtGox, or if something does, that MtGox's competition will be advanced far enough that it won't matter. Same with Silk Road. Suppose there was a successful bust of the Silk Road admin(s) and no competing market to take its place - that might precipitate a big blow to the market as well.
On the flip side, if any client developers successfully pull off a working client that allows a full citizen node to function on a partial block chain (either via pruning or meta-chain or meta-tree or whatever), that will be a big plus for the market, because those who correctly point out that Bitcoin is only "so" scalable, will have to re-evaluate just how scalable it is with such a feature. They'll still be right about it not being infinitely scalable, but they'll have seen a breakthrough to the next serious iteration in scalability and realize that we're still a long way away from insurmountable limits.
couldnt of said it better myself.
the fact is the scalability issue will be solved, because it can.
anyone remember how lame Linux was back in 1995?
why did some people get so excited about it?
remember bitcoin is only on year 3. it take 10 years for a new tech to really function properly.
you have any idea how many people think bitcoin can be hacked and anyone can make "free money" with it by selling your freely made bitcoin to the "suckers".... some people need years of bashing over the head b4 they understand.