I ask this community both because Scott Alexander has written a few articles mentioning cryptocurrency, and because LessWrong seems more likely to give a sober analysis rather than an instant dismissal or a breathless endorsement.

10 years from now, the crypto industry as a whole must either:

1) Increase in value;

2) Decrease in value; or

3) Stay relatively stable compared to today.

Of these scenarios, #1 or #2 seem the most likely; either crypto will find its niche and grow in value, or it will encounter headwinds and decline.

I find it easy to imagine the possible negative scenarios, so I'll outline those in this post. However, I'm curious about possible positive scenarios, such as Bitcoin becoming a new "digital gold" or a new standard for decentralized transactions. I'd be very interested in hearing cases for those in the comments.

Scenarios That Could Hobble Crypto:

Widespread loss of interest: If the mainstream loses belief in the potential of cryptocurrency, prices would massively decline. However, presumably some hobbyists would continue to use it, maintaining some value.

Government regulations and bans: If governments come out hard against cryptocurrency, this could also cause values to decline due to less widespread usage. However, use could continue in more friendly jurisdictions.

Scenarios That Could Destroy Crypto:

51% attack: If a single organization can gain 51% of the computing power on a certain blockchain, they can essentially fabricate transactions.

Encryption is broken: Quantum computing could have the ability to break mainstream encryption standards, making non-quantum-proof cryptocurrency worthless. However, quantum computing may be decades away, there may be countermeasures towards it, and if encryption as a whole is broken there will be much worse things to worry about.

As-yet-unforeseen technical vulnerability: There may be some way to override certain blockchains that has not been foreseen yet.