Disclosure: My first business dealt solely with the sale and trade of cryptographic currencies, my opinion is very biased in terms of their longterm outcome.
I think crypto-currencies are an innovation that will last decades, individual currencies may come and go until a candidate is selected for universal usage, or a company may form which makes the actual type of crypto-currency arbitrary (It would be like paying for food in Italy with your debit card linked to a bank holding USD).
One of the reasons why I think they will last is because most banks are corrupt, unethical, discriminatory, and regulations are becoming evermore stringent. I would much rather toss all my USD/EUR for crypto's if they were accepted everywhere, because I would have
complete control over where my money is at the moment, I could transfer any amount within minutes (NXT not BTC) to a person across the globe, and finally there is no third party which could freeze my account or reverse a transaction for an arbitrary and unsubstantiated reason. I know you think I'm paranoid about banks, but half a year ago Chase "seized" around 30k and closed my account without any notice, I actually found out by going in to my local branch for a routine withdrawal and my personal banker informed me that my assets were frozen. It took me two months to get a check for my account balance, minus the 30k. My lawyer said taking them to court would cost more than 30k and I should just shake off the loss, which I did

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Secondly; crypto-currencies may be possessed and transferred by any individual with a computer and internet access, this is especially advantageous to those in developing countries without access to international banks. Of course getting them computers and internet may be difficult, but much less so than establishing a connection to the international banking system in every area with the aforementioned technological resources. As technology becomes more and more prevalent in developing countries I see the adoption of CC's as inevitable....
Thirdly; the value of CC's are determined by a global market, unlike the EUR or the USD. Assuming market capitalization reaches the trillion dollar mark I think their value(s) would be more stable than currencies issued by governments. Of course at the present time we are in the early adoption phase where their value(s) are volatile, and keeping a significant portion of your assets in CC's is risky.
Fourthly; the quantity of all sound CC's is mathematically predictable -- no "central bank" (think Zimbabwe) can print out trillions and depreciate your holdings.
There are significant hurdles which us proponents of CC's must jump; education/adoption, government regulation, and transparency. Many people that I talk to haven't heard of Bitcoin, which saddens me to some extent.
What are your thoughts on the longterm viability of cryptographic currencies in general?
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