The biggest threat to bitcoin in my opinion is a rival crypto currency with a big enough userbase to become the de facto standard crypto currency, with bitcoin lagging behind as a tiny geek crypto currency.
E.g. a crypto currency developed by Visa, Mastercard or Facebook.
Companies with either a huge existing userbase or an existing payment infrastructure, preferably both.
E.g. a crypto currency developed by Visa, Mastercard or Facebook.
Companies with either a huge existing userbase or an existing payment infrastructure, preferably both.
This is an excellent observation.
It truely is. I've said many times that I don't see Bitcoin as having a very high potential for competativness as an exchage currency for buying trinkets due to latency, privacy, security of secret keys, etc. Many solutions could come out of the woodwork that handle these better, and it is entirely possible that the more successfull of them could come from an organization with significant resources and a head-start in terms of userbase.
Bitcoin's only long term potential seems to me to be in providing a truly decentralized and extensively hardened solution for higher value transactions and wealth storage. I doubt that any of the large established players could or would match Bitcoin in this market segment. There would be legal, operational, and business challenges to them doing so.
