successful cryptanalitic attack on private keys, excessive mining monopoly, global internet shutdown (possibly), massive loss of interest.
Hell Yeah you are right that a great hacker that has a capability and skills can kill Bitcoin at all.Global internet shutdown for me is the major factor that can formally and the one that can make the Bitcoin fall down in permanent and put it into history.
i dont think any single 'great hacker' is going to be able to destroy bitcoin singlehandedly; the power of bitcoin lies in its users and their belief in the system, for any single individual to shut that down all down, which would have to involve the security in the blockchain system, access to bitcoin, and usability of bitcoin, would take something beyond a miracle in my eyes. but then again, i've no doubt that even if all this were managed to be destroyed, there would be more than a handful of die hard believers that would keep it going, maybe even implement changes that would cause a revival of bitcoin or something.
I was just going to say the same thing, I don't think it is possible to destroy bitcoin because of the amount of users it has and the amount of investment involved.
the amount of money in the system doesn't really change things; sure, it might influence people to act in order to protect their holdings, but maybe it might cause them to panic dump in order to salvage what the can. that aside, there is no such thing as 'too big to fail,' if anything, the more money put into the system, the bigger the bubble if the system does balloon to that extent without adequate backing.
