Concerning how useful this tech is, is there any chance it will be adopted into Bitcoin?
If not the core, how about a side chain?
Putting it in the Bitcoin chain itself is a hard-sell because there is a serious scalability downsize (all the cryptographically strong anonymity techniques break pruning), among other pedestrian reasons. A side-chain using it seems virtually certain to me, limited more by the deployment of sidechain tech than anything else... even more so than the ZeroCash anonymity design simply because the ring signature approach is so simple by comparison.
But it's all a guess at this stage. Technology progress in Bitcoin is slow— for good reason— and now with the prospect that altcoin pumpers may we well funded to try to disrupt that progress… well, it'll be sad if what kills cryptocurrency isn't competition from traditional financial instruments or authorities but just poisonous behavior between competing systems. :-/
Well to be honest the quicker a true side chain implementation comes the better. Some of the alternative coins have new ideas, but they all have to fight hard to gain a share of the market.
Look at very professional projects like Ethereum, one of the most discussed topics is what's fair for the "IPO" and many people already are going to create a "fair" fork (I personally think that their IPO intentions are very fair). Because these are coins and the money is here, now and real, there will always been fighting for the investment that rises above the others, even just for that one day.
People see really good tech, but then become dismayed that the chain is two years old already, ask yourself, how can there not be poisonous behavior between competitors when millions of dollars are at stake?
Everyone is looking to be on the next best thing, one thing that would help is side chains, because then Bitcoin can continue to be that next best thing instead of having a new coin every week offering better features.
This isn't a new phenomenon, look at the battle between Tesla and Edison.
When it comes to money, it's a dirty battle, people aren't fighting for the tech, but rather their return on investment.
gmaxwell, are we close to solving the 51% attack on side chain weakness?
(97% of people are here for the returns, the tech is a vessel for that return)
(I may be completely wrong about all the above, I have been very wrong many times before!)