I hate to break it to you all, but unfortunately, rampant speculation, the hack attacks and massive price drops have already essentially killed bitcoin from the credibility point of view. No large company will willingly use a currency if using it risks their profitability on the scale bitcoin does.
Such a volatile market also has the potential for ENORMOUS gains. People have made quite tidy sums of USD from BTC. THat wont go unnoticed by investors if it continues. Rewards require risk.
When you want to accept payment in btc you don't want it to arbitarily drop in value and make you essentially sell at a loss. The only thing the volatile market encourages is
more speculating, rather than actual marketplaces.
Price volatility is a huge factor in Bitcoin becoming accepted. I think it's useless to think about wide acceptance until our own community has some sort of economy.
Maybe we don't have the goods and services to support this currency. If this is the case, it will be difficult for this to take off.
The only option might be to create a virtual economy. Something similar to Second Life, where BTC will always have value. In this economy you can buy real estate, build things to sell. It allows everyone to participate in the economy. In the real world this is not the case.
Crazy idea, but I think it could work.
