Sidechains seem to have no downsides for Bitcoin that I can see, and solve a bunch of really thorny problems. As long as they are defensible it should have huge value for a greatly expanded Bitcoin userbase. Probably for us BTC hodlers as well in monetary terms as well as for more philosophical aspects. Some sidechains could be totally 'licensed' to the government's satisfaction so all of the big names could jump on board.
My guess is that there will be some who try desperately to yank out Satoshi's 1MB cap ASAP before it's to late. As long as the cap is in place the system will be much more difficult to subvert or monopolize and that has been driving some clued in people crazy for as long as I've been watching things.
tvbcof, can you take the tinfoil hat off now?
Sidechains may work brilliantly, and deliver lots of 2.0 applications, but this tech will not appear overnight. What is the point of star-ship Enterprise quality sidechains working off the MySpace of cryptocurrency?
Not raising blocksize, *at least* roughly allowing for Moore's Law, seems insane, and would just drive some alt to gain significant marketshare.
Absolutely.
No matter how good SC are, they are not a substitute for allowing the existing system to scale at the rate of the
slowest improving computing technology: bandwidth.