What factors will satisfy us that blockchain technology is on track for realizing its potential?
Because as of now we see very little in the way of commercial and user engagement...
we need and only care about bitcoin success and for that we only need more adoption and it will only happen over time and with some other factor.
the underlying technology (the blockchain technology) is successful and is becoming a lot more successful as bitcoin grows bigger. besides there are lots of people, groupls, and banks working on the technology with all their altcoins, so i'd say it is pretty successful.
Yes the more Bitcoin will grow and be known in the public the more will the technology in general be adopted for all kind of different use cases.
It will be a bit like the internet/intranet thing back in the days depending on what you need and what you want.
Permissionless Blockchains for everybody with free access as also permissioned Blockchains only for certain individuals or companies via restricted access.
Both will have their markets.