Bitcoin offered free, anonymous money that held the promise of freeing us from the tyranny that stems from state issued and state mandated currencies.
And it failed. It failed because in the end most people didn't want to use and accept it in commerce to liberate themselves from the chains of state issued currency. What people wanted was not to use bit coins to buy and sell, but instead to buy hoard and sell the bitcoins themselves in hopes of getting rich.
It failed because, at our core, none of us really wanted freedom, and privacy in our economic transactions, all we wanted was speculations and more money.
Bitcoin is proof once again that people don't care about liberty, they care about wealth. And they will always sacrifice liberty for money.
The failure of bitcoin rests in it's fundamental belief that people wanted to be free. People don't want to be free, they want fast cars, big houses, and easy money.
A technology still in its infancy shouldn't be called a failure.