The Bitcoin Tracking Thread

[vacuum]

Out of curiosity, how will the plug be pulled, and who will pull it?

If what is said about the block sizes increasing indefinitely to huge sizes, it may at some point become impractical for the average person to use bitcoins. Having to download terabytes of data just to buy something for $2 online wouldn't be attractive.

What would happen is that intermediaries would be set up that would take care of holding your bitcoins for you, and you just use them like a debit card is used today.

In that case it won't be as competitive anymore with other currencies, so it will probably not become the dominate currency, but the oldest and used for certain purposes only.

Then people will slowly start accepting only newer and more advanced crypto currencies because they are simply easier to deal with. The combination of third party brokers and a dwindling places to spend it will cause it to go extinct one day.

So basically the free market will determine when it's time is up.