The first path is far from real because the central government will never agree to tranfer the legal currency management power from their hand to a technology that is so transparent. Bitcoin can act like digital gold but then it will lose its volatility and will also become stagnant. Due to the above factors the Bitcoin will start loosing it's popularity slowly. Now we have other coins which are fare more fast, secured, private and also ananomous than bitcoin. The reason Bitcoin is so popular is that you need to first buy Bitcoin to purchase any other Crypto currency once this problem is solved Bitcoin will lose its value as people would like to use other currency. If you see the interviews of people who spoke against Bitcoin you will see that they were against Bitcoin but they support blockchain technology. So for this reason Bitcoin will ultimately be replaced by a better crypto currency. Now which Crypto currency can replace Bitcoin ? Only time will tell that but there is Ethereum ripple zcash dash which are very strong contenders of Bitcoin.