in 2014, all this bad new has battered BTC into a corner. But I see the biggest risk not coming from banks and governments, but from other Crypto's. Other coins will become more attractive to mine, because all that sha256 hash power fells kind of lame when ($9,999) 2TH state of the art asic only makes 0.16 BTC a day, it fells like your being short changed.
Peercoin for example's price is 4.5 times lower than peak prices, so when the uptrend starts agan in the future, it will be more profitable to buy and hold than BTC. the PoW mining profitability is 88% of BTC now but that overtakes on uptrends, Peercoin also uses sha256 asics and does not suffer from a static coin cap and is in fact mineable without any hardware at all via PoS mining (just leave you wallet open & don't move coins). PoS is environmentally more sound as well, as only the PoW miners use the asics. meaning Peercoin investors gain (interest on their investment) as well as a higher percentage shift on an uptrend. It's also less techy to PoS mine as you need no real experience. Just open the wallet and wait for the interest to roll in.
Although It will never take over from BTC anytime soon I see the gap narrowing in 2014. I will be taking 35% peercoin 35% LTC 30% BTC.. if the ball starts rolling again later this year.
This year will define crypto, i don't think it's certain in which way or that it will go the same way as previous years. Peercoin is established and is more advanced than BTC in many ways. keep your eye on it in 2014.




