Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been an extremely hot topic lately, with both positive and negative speculations about its future. Despite the growing interest in cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain technology, new crypto ventures are far from overwhelmingly successful -- in fact, TechCrunch reported that more than 1,000 cryptocurrency projects are already dead.

Much like the Dot Com bubble of the late '90s and early 2000s, many experts believe that these failed initiatives are simply part of the natural "boom and bust" cycle, and blockchain is just beginning to find its footing in the larger economy. Here's what members of Forbes Technology Council predict will happen with cryptocurrency -- and its nascent supporting technology -- in the coming years.

1. Widespread Distributed Data Models

Blockchain has highlighted a critical aspect of the way data is going to work in the coming decades, and that is a world where data will be ever increasingly distributed. Any solutions for next-generation data problems must come to grips with this fact, and plan for a day where critical data is distributed among many geographies and even across on-premise and cloud data centers. - Billy Bosworth, DataStax