For me, the question of volatility is not addressed sufficiently. It is of crucial importance if Bitcoin wants to be successful as a currency and not only as a speculative asset ("digital gold" is only another word for that).
Apart from a noble few, no one wants to use it as a currency. The majority want to speculate on it.
Speculation tapers off when enough people find real uses for it. You can't force it and it's going to happen naturally anyway. It's going to take time though.
Any sort of widespread currency use will be one of the very last things to fall into place. It has to become a store of value first.
Bitcoin development direction are what I feel is that where Bitcoin itself is struggling to maintain its position in financial landscape, would there be enough merchants for backing Bitcoin at a scale that can impact price at all? I believe this idea won't work without the interference of some centralised institution and also, unless there is a diversity of services and products that act as backing agent for Bitcoin, it will struggle to make any difference as people won't be buying anything just because they can get it cheaper during crash.