Risto I don't know if you are sleeping and I didn't intentionally post this during my morning in order to defeat your option to quickly delete should you so desire. I just happen to reply at this time.
I don't think anything can stop this, and the logical conclusion is that it won't be stopped.
Nothing can stop it until the rate of adoption
slows. Period.
Realize the operative word is
slows and that is because the growth model is almost entirely as a speculative asset.
The design of Bitcoin for a currency is very poor as compared to credit cards or Paypal. If you don't believe me, try to use it like a credit card for a week at the merchants who accept Bitcoin. And I don't mean a dearth of merchants, I mean it just doesn't work well even where it is accepted, if you are an average person with average lack of technical acumen. And there is a significant design error w.r.t. to transaction fees which will worsen as the market cap increases and the coin rewards halve a few more times, thus years from now.Besides government fouling it up noting
I have explained how government can destroy/control at-will, the only other credible threat would be an altcoin that changes the universe; meaning it would have to be revolutionary in a way that was so incredibly compelling that it sucked the life out of Bitcoin.
Neither of those remote possibilities are likely.
Government is
in fact endorsing Bitcoin. And I suspect the reason is (partially) because they've been trying to get rid of cash (1000 Euro bill recently gone, daily ATM limits dropping throughout Europe, similar in USA with banks refusing to let one withdraw large amounts of cash), they've announced plans to move towards electronic currency in order to apply a negative interest rate to all balances by decree (both in the USA and EU and also the IMF has announced a net worth tax).
And Bitcoin is so much better for catching tax evaders than cash, because everything is stored on the public ledger, and as
I explained already that without strong anonymity (which is not built-in to Bitcoin), then via divide-and-conquer it is trivially easy to force all Bitcoin users to require identification on all their trades (spends).
The Bitcoin-killer altcoin is not likely, not so much due to the
illusory network-effects, but because no one has shown the capability to create an altcoin that offers anything
that creates value other than the spiraling speculation growth model which Risto just avowed.
Edit: my current thinking is absent government killing it or a killer altcoin, Bitcoin adoption slows once all of those who are tech savvy are in. If someone finds a way to make Bitcoin super easy for people like my mother, then the adoption could continue all the way into the entire population, because for example my mom eventually adopted Paypal. But here is the pertinent revelation,
she has no reason to switch from Paypal, it already serves the purposes she needs from an electronic currency. Let that
thud sink in.
She and most average people will refuse to buy a speculative asset.One caveat is to note not all citizens in all developing countries can be merchants with Paypal, so this is a potential market opportunity, but other than for international money transfers so far I see no other mainstream Bitcoin adoption whatsoever in this market segment. Note the recent sending of Bitcoin for typhoon victims is an example where Paypal probably would have failed us, as it is difficult to withdraw from Paypal in the Philippines (only certain banks accepted, only certain types of accounts at those banks, and in general one can not be receiving payments as a merchant). Also the ability to side-step China's capital controls by buying BTC.
Risto when it comes to understanding internet marketing, I am more knowledgeable and experienced than you. So pay attention, just as I do pay attention when you speak about trading strategy because you live and breathe it daily and you are born to do it. I was born to fiddle with and understand phenomena and even infrequently implement consumer market movers of some significance.Yet none of them (save bank account) is sanctioned by law. I believe Bitcoin will soon join this group of de facto used technologies.
Sorry the latter doesn't follow from the former, meaning de facto adoption of technology has nothing to with that it is or isn't sanctioned by law. And the latter is impossible (with 10 minute blocks, non-zero transaction fees, etc). Reality check.
While leavening the system, it does away with fiat money (including debt), and we will have a quite interesting new world when all is completed.
We all wish that was true, but it is
in fact impossible, at least the current design of Bitcoin.
I would rather you look at Bitcoin as potentially the first stepping stone in that direction,
as my Cool Page was the first that led to Friendster which led to Myspace which led to Facebook. Whether Bitcoin will be modified (unlikely due to vested interests), offchain takes over (possibly), the government will take over (most likely in my analysis), or an altcoin will outcompete (less likely) remains to be seen.