Yes, other than your second premise in (1), you nailed Bitcoin's trajectory to a 'T'. As someone who entered the developers in (2) back in early 2011, I watched this painful transition to 3 and 4 repeat itself until 2014, at which point I basically left due to the toxic composition of the community (it was the get-rich-quick types and scammers, often overlapping, that truly devastated the community). It makes me incredibly sad that such a promising technology has suffered this fate. Ah well, being money, I suppose that becoming corrupted was its destiny from the beginning.
I do disagree with your assertion in (1), which is that Bitcoin's applicability to real-world problems was questionable. From the beginning, it was clear to me that at least the technology behind Bitcoin could easily become Money 2.0. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the social/governmental/financial factors.
I do disagree with your assertion in (1), which is that Bitcoin's applicability to real-world problems was questionable. From the beginning, it was clear to me that at least the technology behind Bitcoin could easily become Money 2.0. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account the social/governmental/financial factors.