Bitcoin will never reach the mainstream because there are far too many crooks, scammers, hackers and the like preying on everyone else aswell as each other. And because of the anonymity they are much less likely to be traced.

Unless the whole business has more accountability it will always remain underground and be treated with suspicion by mainstream consumers and businesses alike.

With difficulty reaching such high levels in a few months putting mining outside the realm of 99% of current miners I forsee the interest in BTC dieing out quite rapidly and the whole charade collapsing.

Dramatic, yes. Probable, yes.