Hi folks,

I think 2018 will be a crucial year for bitcoin. Price is going down and will probably keep going down for a while, but if we forget all speculation talk, do you think bitcoin can survive and become a real currency with LN technology?

For me, the fact that bitcoin does not promote anonymity anymore is perhaps a good thing. Let's be honest, our western governments will never allow anything for anonymous payments.
So the point is not to escape (totally) from the system. To pay taxes, I am personally fine with it.

Whether it is an exchange currency, independent from banks and especially not held by central bank allows to have a global reference.

In my mind, you pay taxes on each payment. It's called "bank operating costs". And banks stuff themselves like crazy. In 30 years these banks managed to lay down their law whereas they were only intended to make exchanges fluid (and for instance help producing wealth). We saw that this system is wobbly, but some organizations have become too big to fail (therefore  "above the laws" of the market and democracy).

Instead of paying these fees to the banks, you pay a fee to the miners AND to the government (tax). Instead of paying the fee to a bank, you feed the redistribution of wealth at the State level. The State finds again some control over its currency, and uses a neutral and free of intermediary payment vector.  

The fact that the quantity is limited? Yes maybe it is an issue. But it is divisible almost to infinity. So we can talk in BTC or satoshi, it's just a change of reference. Knowing that in absolute terms,  there is no value reference it does not bother me (but speculation will need to be stopped at some point and I believe that's what is happening right now).

Then bitcoin is not a way to help the "dark market". It's just a technology that eliminates the trust 3rd party in a transaction.      

Right, this is purely a mathematical vision but it's worth a discussion!