&gt; Bitcoin, although the largest chain right now, will be a small player in an enormous field.<p>I don&#x27;t know how you can say this with any degree of certainty (read: I want your crystal ball).  Network effects are incredibly important here, as the security of the system is exactly its total hashing size.  Bitcoin has such a head start that I don&#x27;t see how anything could overtake it without providing incredible new features that can&#x27;t be implemented even as side-chains.