How to make money on Bitcoins

I’v seen a lot of discussions around bitcoins lately: how long they will be around, if this is a new bubble, how “fixed” they are. For me, another question is more interesting, how will people make money on bitcoins?

I can see these money-making opportunities:

Bitcoin Mining. I think that the prime time for mining is over for bitcoins. There is an opportunity in mining for alternative virtual currencies but it’s risky as it is unknown what alternatives will be around in a few years
Making tools for bitcoin mining. There are several major players in this space and it is amazing how fast technology is progressing
Conferences and publications. That’s guaranteed to work for the few people with experience in that space
Developing software. There is a need for plug-ins into major web store fronts, end user wallets, point-of-sale devices, etc. May be at some point we will even see plug-ins into accounting software
Arbitrage between bitcoin exchanges
Speculation on price spikes. Creating price spikes by purchasing and dumping large amount of coins
Running bitcoin exchanges
Financial consulting
Combination of the above

Anything I am missing? (old-fashion steeling will not be counted here)

Watching how people made money on Y2K, Web1.0 bubble, mobile apps, I feel that there is a clear pattern and the list above with some small modifications will be applicable for the next “big” thing. What will it be? Does it matter? People who are good with words will always make money on words. People who are good with code will always make money on code. People with business talent will always find a way to monetize their brain waves.

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