The reality may be none of us know which way Bitcoin is heading, but the potential applications for Bitcoin technology are such that this (the technology) is surely likely to stay and to develop in new areas.
This is what I've been telling to people who are comparing bitcoin to the dot com bubble. The dot com bubble happened because back then people were thinking internet = free money, which it obviously wasn't, so the bubble had to burst. But the technology behind it stayed, and good dot com companies prospered because it was good technology and it is the backbone of pretty much everything we do right now.
The same applies to bitcoin, or the blockchain technology, to be more precise. Altcoins may disappear, even bitcoin itself may disappear in the future, but the blockchain technology is here to stay.