I don't think it can fail entirely, because it's not even clear what failure for Bitcoin would look like. Even if the value of a BTC plummets overnight, it's st

I don't think it can fail entirely, because it's not even clear what failure for Bitcoin would look like. Even if the value of a BTC plummets overnight, it's still useful as an intermediary, which is what all the big Bitcoin startups are using it for. The only failure scenario for Bitcoin that I can see is a technological one: if someone finds a way to break transaction integrity, that would be very bad. But the basic premise is sound, so even if Bitcoin falls in this manner, some other cryptographic value transfer system will continue to exist.