Even at this point I think the mining Bubble will continue for a while and many people will loose a lot of money.
Just look at this forum. Bitcoin is currently all about mining. If I click on unread posts 90% are somehow related to mining.
I hope when this craze finally ends we will see more actual stuff about getting Bitcoin adopted again.The problem here is that all the excitement from the Bitcoin conference wore off and no real businesses have sprung up, no retail adoption of Bitcoin as a payment method has happened, etc. There are a number of "onboarding" businesess which are based around little else than what blockchain provides today, BitInstant got venture funding then went dark shortly thereafter other than status updates, Coinbase is still rocking it (good on 'em!), but there is really nothing else. All the other businesses are around mining which everyone can admit is a losing proposition unless you can guarantee delivery before the other guys bomb the network.
But wait, Silk Road has spawned a number of competitors that will even deal with good SR won't touch, so the black market around BTC and even LTC is expanding. And as more talk of banks and countries financial system failing goes around there is a bigger chance of folks
temporarily moving money to BTC as an intermediary, but that will only produce a momentary bubble that some investors will cash in on, otherwise it'll prove BTC to only be a transfer medium between outlets of the fiat world. May as well be Liberty Reserve at that point. Oh wait...
This industry needs an "Aha!" moment, a spot it can fill that nobody else can touch otherwise. Unfortunately moving cash into a security with fluctuating value and shady/inconsistent methods for moving funds back and forth to actual money is still not a big selling point, and unless I want drugs, stolen computer equipment, or to deal with the few online businesses that have begun swapping BTC for their digital services, I'm out of luck.
I can buy groceries with $20 in my pocket, if I had ~$20 worth of Bitcoin it may be worth $15 when I get to the store and only buy me $13 of groceries because of exchange. Bitcoin fails in the real world test.