Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on April 08, 2013, 04:14:17 PM

Still Bitcoin is a low level protocol. It is highly likely that as long as Bitcoin continues to grow higher level services will be built on top of them including off blockchain transactions which can be guaranteed within seconds.

Thank you, that's what I was thinking to post while reading along the whole thread... I know that many Bitcoin fans have a different opinion about this, but I think we should really see Bitcoin as virtual cash or gold. It has the same characteristics as cash or gold (if you disregard that fiat money is being printed by central banks continuously) -- except that it is virtual and thus very easy to transfer and not completely instantaneous.

But the important thing is that just like cash, Bitcoin is low-level -- nobody is preventing anyone from providing higher-level services on top of Bitcoin, i.e. instant payment services. And these services don't have to become a centralized system -- just less decentralized than a real peer-to-peer network: there can be many instant payment providers without any central organization controlling them.

Btw, I also believe that Bitcoin has to become a bit less decentralized: if Bitcoin continues to grow that dramatically there is no other way than establishing Bitcoin provider businesses/services (like online wallets). A typical end-user won't be able to handle the traffic and resource usage of the Bitcoin network -- these tasks have to be transferred to providers. The no-trust system doesn't work in this big world -- it will be always necessary to trust some companies to provide some services. And as long the system is not fully centralized this is no problem at all.