...
I'm not trying to sell anything. I've got nothing to sell and no reason to (other than to try to protect my holding in Bitcoin from being destroyed by trying to shoe-horn it into roles where it doesn't fit I suppose.) Again, it's just a few things I thought of off the top of my head, though a couple of the ideas have struck me before.
...
Besides, the more native Bitcoin grows the more it is open to various kinds of attack, collapse, or de-evolution into something other than what it started out as (and loses it's appeal for this reason.) This is in fact one of the biggest reasons that sidechains appeal to me. This growth and the associated risks need not be inevitable.
...
How would bitcoin lose its appeal?
Are you implying the scalability issues?
Oh sure. I've been bothered by scalability from literally the first second that I read the whitepaper, but I could see great potential for Bitcoin in certain roles anyway. I anticipated something which are in principle sidechains right away as a means of dealing with some of the scaling issues. And providing a lot of other benefits as well.
How would bitcoin de-evolve into something other than it started out as? Examples?
One example would be consolidation of infrastructure support (especially mining) to large entities who are by the nature of their capital investment (if nothing else) prone to follow regulatory edicts no matter how inane and pernicious.
Mike Hearn is hands-down the most visionary person in the space in my opinion. Most technical people immediately grasp the significance of secret key as it relates to counter-party risk. Mike anticipated the consolidation of mining with the famous phrase which went something like '
there is little difference between taking someone's BTC and keeping them from spending it for 20 years.'
Since 1) the net revenue (in tx fees and inflation) for mining approaches zero no matter what, and 2) the only way to remain profitable is to monetize other value streams, and 3) only large specialist entities (e.g., Google) are able to do this with maximum efficiency, there is a very clear path toward this 'de-evolution' which bothers me.
Having this potential near monopoly on Bitcoin's support infrastructure is one way to implement {color}-listing, though I believe that simple economic principles would also make {color}-listing quite effective as well, and particularly so if/when Bitcoin is primarily used as a popular exchange currency.