A big part of the issue with Bitcoin is that our global economic system is, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be based on fiat currencies issued a

A big part of the issue with Bitcoin is that our global economic system is, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be based on fiat currencies issued and controlled by central banks. I see Bitcoin's role in all this as a way to exploit arbitrage in currency exchange rates for restricted currencies. This is exactly why it's popular in China. It is a currency whose supply is algorithmically limited and theoretically should track global inflation. The world has always had nominal exchange rates and de-facto exchange rates for restricted currencies; but until something like Bitcoin emerged there was no legal way to perform exchanges at the de-facto rates at scale. My big worry with Bitcoin is that the supply is too limited. Currency is subject to manipulation by many forces; much of the job of a central bank in control of money supply is to counteract any intentional manipulation. With unstable prices and a limited circulation value (the total value of all BTC in circulation is only ~$12 billion) it is very open to manipulation by investment banks and hedge funds. Until BTC reaches economic scale, it's going to be subject to all sorts of shenanigans; and with no central authority to counteract the manipulative influences, I don't know that there will ever be enough trust in it for it to reach that scale.