I believe that crypto currencies will not affect most people’s lives (<10%), and therefore it will never go “mainstream”. The applications for BTC are quite limited, and are mostly edge cases such as evading detection, and easy international transfers. The value of a BTC is currently based on the price of mining one BTC, plus mass speculation. If you consider the immense inefficiency and resources required to mine a BTC, you realize that in most cases using your state’s currency is a better option. The trust and safety provided by BTC is subject to the law of diminishing returns, meaning that most will be content with the money system currently being used today.
Then there's the cost in securing the money, transferring it, and keeping track of it add the cost of fake notes, lost and damaged notes and you should see where I am going with this argument.
Then lets talk about "application of btc for edge cases" moving money internationally is not an edge case, it is something that makes the world go round and disruption in that area is no trivial thing. Its not an edge case. As for crypto being used by people to avoid detection, well, you can do the same things with fiat currencies. Why do you think there are organisation like the FBI hiring highly skilled people to track and trace what people do with their money. In a crypto world there is a better chance for law enforcement to catch criminals.
The best thing about the blockchain is it helps us solve the problem of trust, ofcourse I agree there are problems with this model right now, for example how mining pools can technically launch a 51% attack on the major block-chains and the wole tx/s problem. But what you need to realize is these problems are being acknowledged by the community and are being solved little by little, the technology is progressing there's billions of dollars worth of money tied up in this project. One more point, the block chain is not just about currencies, there's so many more areas where they can be useful. Take a look at the Ethereum project.
Therefore I am someone who really believe that block-chains are here to stay and they are going to effect every single one of us.
It's worth noting that in most countries, notes are a low-single digit percentage of actual money supply. Most money exists either as central bank reserves or bank credit.
Using blockchains (crypto-currencies) as digital escrows will have wide ranging and high value impact. Modernized escrows for the 3rd millenium.
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Early merchants used cuneiform impressed tokens (or equiv) to represent some kind of trade, for convenience. You and I agreed to trade 100 bushels of wheat for 10 jugs of wine. I give you 100 bushels. You give me 10 wine tokens. I later redeem tokens for actual wine. Or trade my 10 wine for 2 silk. Or whatever.
Those tokens only became "money" when they became ubiquituous enough to become units of measurement (of value) onto themselves, independent of their original intent.
Meaning the escrow medium became currency. A phase change.
Maybe that happens with bitcoin. I don't see it. For me, bitcoins are akin to collectables, like limited edition baseball cards. Precious bits of data that you might be able to pawn off onto someone else.
Until bitcoin becomes currency (a ubiquituous form of escrow), bitcoin investments is just a form of gambling.
Anyone wanting something like bitcoin to supplant something like US dollars should build towards that future by tackling the escrow use cases.
