@20kevin20: I have been in it since 2016 -- wrote about it in 2013 as a journalist actually, but personally was not moved by the concept, mainly because I had spent my time reading articles about them, rather than listen to or study the discussions about them, which I eventually did in 2016.
I always say it's a social experiment and I'm a voluntary participant. I'm not hardcore, probably never will be, but I like most the users who quietly use it, don't get upset over how others use it, I meet those quite regularly and I think, we're all okay if bitcoin fails -- though none of us thinks it will. I am somewhat dismissive over investors who don't actually own Bitcoin (I know a few!), they're absolutely not contributing to the network at all but hey, they contribute to the idea and the awareness of it I suppose I gotta give them that.
I don't really think we can predict anything about the future, except that Bitcoin will most likely end up in ways that would surprise most of us, and upset very few of us.
As long as there's a hard core defending the base tenets it has the chance to be what many hope it will become. .
It certainly does have a hard Core; banker-backed Blockstream. Good luck if you think that will result in giving many hope.
As much as I hate to admit it, but this is one of the hard corer segments of Bitcoin for sure. I don't believe they're all bad (hey I like a satellite network too, for example), but you know it's hard to shrug off the taint of corporate agenda.