Asked if bitcoin was still an experiment and when, if ever, it would move past that stage, Andresen pointed out that the protocol is still labeled as Version 0.9.3 five years into its existence, effectively a pre-1.0 beta product. As for when that would cease to be the case, he said, “we need regulatory clarity, ease of use, and no-single-point-of-failure security. I think we’re very close on all of those things.” He later added that bitcoin will move beyond beta “[when] it feels like it is stable and won’t need to change (besides minor bug fixes) for two or three years.”

http://pando.com/2014/10/22/state-of-bitcoin-check-out-bitcoin-chief-scientist-gavin-andresens-fantastic-reddit-ama/