Just as it got easier to use email, it will be easier to use Bitcoin as people invest in it and become more familiar with it.
In the future, I expect to see bitcoin mining in places where electricity is free or cheap. You could put solar array in the Arizona desert attached to bitcoin miners, and instead of trying to ship that electricity all over world, you could ship Bitcoin all over the world.
I don't see myself as the king of Bitcoin. I don't want to be the king of Bitcoin.
My salary is converted to bitcoin, and taxes are taken out. You have to do all the tax computations in dollars because the IRS does not deal in bitcoins.
There's a lot of thought that bitcoin will be a huge threat to existing tax systems or existing ways governments have of controlling currency flows across their border. I personally think governments will do what governments have always done: they will adapt.
Bitcoin as a globally distributed public ledger - that's the thing I'm most excited about going forward. Thinking about how to use Bitcoin in new and innovative ways. In the meantime, we have the boring uses of Bitcoin that are in the process of going mainstream.
Until part of your paycheck is regularly paid in Bitcoin, I'm not sure how it would really go mainstream. I can imagine places in the world where there are not functioning banking systems or payroll systems, where it could go mainstream first because you're not trying to replace the way people are already doing something.
The regulation picture has gotten a lot clearer in the U.S. and most of Europe. And that's fantastic. I think that's why you're seeing companies like Microsoft and Dell accepting Bitcoins.
You really want some natural way for people to get Bitcoins, as part of their paycheck or some other activity so they can turn around and spend them. It's much better if the Bitcoin economy is a self-contained thing.
I'm most excited about all of the non-currency uses of the block chain's ledger-ordering ability. I have no idea which ones will turn out to be successful, but I'm glad all of that experimenting is happening.
I think the best projects understand that they don't need to invent a new currency. They don't need to use the block chain as their long-term data storage solution. And they don't need to use the peer-to-peer network as their communication mechanism. They should use the block chain as the world's most secure distributed ledger.
