I don't think Bitcoin will replace money, due to the time-to-confirmation and scalability issues. While I understand that 0-confirmation transactions are possib

I don't think Bitcoin will replace money, due to the time-to-confirmation and scalability issues. While I understand that 0-confirmation transactions are possible and currently used by the likes of BitPay and Coinbase, that's not going to be secure forever. I also think the current crowd are, well, a little too an-cap-focused to actually pay attention to issues that real people have with using Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin's going to stick around for a long while, even without mass appeal, and cryptocurrencies will eventually win as the dominant form of money. There's one thing we still need to wait on; zSNARKs for arbitrary computations[0] have to become faster, somehow. After that, it's trivial to build a network of block chains which incentivise distributed storage of the chain, and allow for entirely arbitrary, complex computations and transactions to be mined. Much safer currencies, with complex rulesets, that any 50 cent microcontroller can use and verify, can be built on top of that. You could set up cryptographic guarantor or proof-of-funds systems built on whatever infrastructure you like (whether semi-centralised or varying levels of decentralised), so that entities that you are transacting with have proof that you can't scam them by way of double-spends, for in-person and digital goods transactions, while using the regular double-spend-resistant confirmation system for all other transactions. This system can also be modified and extended without ever changing the protocol, depending on its users' needs for security. [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/507.pdf