Quote from: Kluge on February 25, 2014, 12:09:38 PM

Sure, why not?

1) Multi-coin wallet clients will finally be released into the wild, though they may be more centralized approaches than would be ideal for security and privacy. Alt-coin prices will soar.

2) Exchanges will largely be replaced by p2p and ATMs. ATMs will run their own federated exchanges, solely using current market price. Various trading options may still exist to speculate, but I see them becoming toys for the ultra-wealthy only.

3) Bitcoin-like networks will see significant, though maybe not widespread, use as a notary system, competing with email and un-notarized paper as the de facto way to record mundane p2p contracts.

4) Node centralization will become a major concern, both due to bandwidth/connection bottlenecks and security and privacy risks, and we'll probably be trying to figure out a solution to this well after negative events occur due to the issue. The Bitcoin Foundation or similar may be sending out free physical blockchain copies to anyone who asks.

5) Widespread, explicit discounts by companies for users paying in BTC. 3-5%, at least.

6) Bitpay will eat everyone's breakfast, possibly becoming The Crypto Company if the payment processing space isn't adequately competed in. Bitpay will have the money to finally implement some of the more ambitious ideas like hybrid crypto-fiat debit cards. Bitpay will be largely responsible for the crypto revolution, I believe.

7) Increased skepticism and outright opposition by government officials, and lobbyists for existing infrastructure explicitly attempting to undermine cryptocurrency. We'll see more major markets ban bitcoin transactions and exchanges outright.

8 ) Fracturing of QT project, and eventual decay into irrelevancy as developers move on to other clients and are not competently replaced. Formal organization of protocol development which will look like various protocol alliances we see in other industries... for better or worse, the protocol's fate will be in the hands of relevant corporations. This may end up being a defining moment, possibly causing exodus from Bitcoin itself into other coins with separate protocols.

9) Heavy development in the mixing/anonymization sector of cryptocurrency. All major clients will support cheaper, heavily-mixed transactions.

10) BTC price = $2500-6000 (nobody will use "bitcoin" to price bitcoin, with ksat being the most common unit of measurement)
10a) $10-1000 if major fracturing occurs due to ideological dispute over protocol development

Good post. About the protocol development it self .. what your opinion about Smart transaction fees ? ( http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-core-development-falling-behind-warns-mike-hearn/ )

Thanks