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as an aside, trust in money & banks that hold it is absolutely essential to the public, & also to economic viability. Bank runs & financial panics happen when the public loses that trust. One single hiccup in trust, its over. For this reason, i dont think there is a viable marketplace for 10,000 privately traded e-currencies.
The public trusts gold, trusts the Fed & its reserve notes. I can easily see a scenario that cryptocurrencies are fronts for ponzis. The cryptography is highly technical, so its quite easy to dupe people with elegant language to imply a currency is trustworthy. Ponzis would scare the crap out of ordinary customers & sink the whole industry, even if bitcoins were 100% secure. there is already the egold & epass & ibill examples.
I would personally forecast that cryptocurrencies will ultimately not be viable on a par with government backed currencies, which are highly regulated by governments, for the preceding reason. Which is not to say none would be viable at all, it would be like today where bitcoins are used in very specific markets.
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