Next could be the remittance market. That will bring a new subset of peers and new challenges. This experiment is just getting started.
Remittance is the opposite of greed... Ding ding ding!
How does one earn a Bitcoin through labor to send home to family?
but this also does little if I try and send my buddy in china a bitcoin, he needs to then transfer it to an exchange, sell it, wait 3-5+days to recieve a check so he can go spend it. If he can not spend a bitcoin, remittance is a dud idea until a bitcoin based economy is already up and running.
Again fiat wins,, if bitcoin based projects are not the main focus right now.
That may be true now because there are still many needed items you can't buy with bitcoin. In the future I think most people will just spend bitcoins to buy, and not turn them into local currency.
I do that now. I do not "cash out" ever. Instead when I want to take some profits I go shopping. After the hassle of getting bitcoins why would I trade them for less useful money? I find that some people want bitcoins badly enough to sell for a great price, thus maximizing my buying power and profitability.