Heres a good article on bitcoin and the quantity theory of money.
(
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Weiner/2014-01-28-Bitcoin-Gold-and-the-Quantity-of-Money.html)
This article breaks down exactly why bitcoin will never remain stable because its only real value besides from mining expenses comes from speculation.
Satoshi nakamoto was a programmer with good intentions not an economist or currency analyst. He saw the value of gold and tried building similar positive traits into bitcoin as seen with the bitcoin mining analogy. This analogy has no basis in reality. A better anology is weaving (
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/12311/weaving-better-metaphor-bitcoin-instead-mining/).
"The value of bitcoin will be set entirely by speculators. In gold, there are numerous forces in reality—i.e. numerous arbitrages—that will keep the value of gold tied to the values of every other thing in the economic universe. The value of gold in a free market is the exact opposite of untethered and arbitrary. The value of gold cannot crash and it cannot shoot the moon."
Keeping that in mind I think scamcoins will hurt adoption only because its more profitable to scam people than actually devote time and effort into technology that actually innovates crypto currency.
"Businesses keep books to measure profit and loss. The very principle of bookkeeping depends on a constant value of the unit of account, the numeraire. When the value of the numeraire spikes and crashes, then business which produce wealth go can bankrupt. At the same time others, which destroy wealth, can grow larger, employing more people and more capital to scale up their wealth-destroying activities. This is occurring today on a massive scale."
Professionals will take advantage of the people who genuinely believe in crypto-currency.
"The speculators will use bitcoin as a toy to generate profits (as they already do). When the value of bitcoin is rising, it will be obvious. Everyone has a chart, and they can pile on. The value can rise much farther than anyone would expect. Eventually, the chart will show a topping pattern. Momentum will dry up. The speculators can see this too, and thus will begin a collapsing wave of bitcoin."
Bitcoin is not anonymous and it seems people do not care.
"Bitcoin works well as a foil to fiat currencies. It makes it possible for people to conduct business that would otherwise be impossible. If enough people participate, then it becomes more difficult and more unpopular for governments to act to squelch those activities. It’s a pointed object lesson, showing people what is possible in a less-unfree market. Hopefully it will motivate them to clamor for more freedom."
