It would be interesting to see why you think Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) will surpass traditional methods of payment (Cards, Bank transfers, payment gateways etc.). Or if you think they have no future please share why.
One by one
- Cards? as in Credit Cards? quite technically impossible
![Tongue](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/tongue.gif)
Debit...not impossible but hard as hell.
- Bank transfers? Those things will start to become a thing of the past by themselves for the average user.
- Payment gateways? Bitcoin, when issued for purchases most of the time is through a payment gateway so...
But wait!!!
Bitcoin is money! So, why does it need to compete with services?
![Grin](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
100 top banks from across the world don't like the threat BTC has on their business so they all join together to buy compute power, take over the network and cause havoc. I estimate it would cost around $2,000,000,000 (2 Billion USD). This is very expensive but what's $20,000,000 (20 million USD) to a top bank? That's an investment to help protect their business.[/li][/list]
Rather than going through this...
They could close down every damn exchange bank account.
Imagine coinbase losing its bank account access, where do you think the price will go? 1000?
At 1000 mining becomes unprofitable for everything mining above 3c/kwh , hash rate would drop like a stone, gear would be easy to buy at scrap prices....
But, why do it?
Have you asked yourself how much money banks have made from people sending and receiving wires from exchanges and those accounts?
A colleague of mine was so angry at the last gas price spike that he said he is going to buy an electric car.
I asked him if he knows that our city gets its energy from a gas plant owned by an oil company. He didn't speak to me that day anymore!
![Grin](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
- Speed: BTC is known to be slow to confirm a single transaction (approx 10 mins). ETH is faster (approx 15 seconds). I believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that if you cut down block times it slowly starts to make a decentralised system more centralised.
Not directly but with the blockchain getting bigger faster than HDDs and SSDs, yeah it could lead to that!