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I think the bigger problem, as others mentioned, is shadow interests buying/selling to create speculative bubbles and subsequent crashes. They could orchestrate these events at critical times (during a version release or media event) to discourage new users.
I think it will be impossible to tell if a bubble&crash is "natural" or "the men in black helicopters manipulating the system."Bitcoin will get mentioned someplace with lots of readers, a bunch of those readers will like the idea and try to buy Bitcoins, their price will rise which will draw even more people to "invest", which will drive the price up even more... until people decide that the price isn't going to rise any more and everybody rushes to sell before the price drops. I predict there will be between one and five Bitcoin bubbles (price will double or more and then crash back down below the starting price) in the next four years .
What do you all think-- are bubbles and crashes a natural emergent property of markets, or would Bitcoin be immune if nobody were trying to cause a bubble?