I think it is hard to imagine a scenario where demand outstrips difficulty for any really significant period of time. We might have bubbles of media/public created inflation but... Commercial and public interest will quickly lead to solutions for mining these coins, ASIC, FPGA etc not too long afterwards. The players involved will eventually find an equilibrium to balance it out.

There is a good, old analogy with gold mining in america. The gold rush made a few lucky, early miners rich. The company that sold them all the shovels got absolutely loaded pretty damn quick.


But now here we are back to demand. Gold is tangible, shiny, rare. It's quite easy to understand why people valued trading in it, it was quite obvious to the average joe why having lots of gold was a good aim. Can we do the same on the internet with BitCoins?

Part of the problem is the technological barrier. How many here really understand the way BitCoin operates, i mean, really get it. Not many i imagine and i don't see that may people (my friends included)  become immediately interested when i start talking about private and public key cryptography.

 So my main concern is that bitcoins has thus far been a highly niche interest that attracts a good percentage of the geek and liberal population without really grabbing an equal share of the general public or business interest. Essentially we have too much difficulty and too much coming every day.

If we can break through that barrier, by simplifying and enhancing security AND solving liquidity (amongst others) issues maybe we will see the growth spurt we all want.