but that's different. There's only a limited amount of btc you can mine, whereas currency can be printed as profligately as you like ... it's more like "gold" in that sense ...
Interesting point. I wouldn't say profligate since creating a new coin, and getting people to adopt it is far less trivial than printing a bundle of notes. But, I think you're right in pointing out that it is a side-channel through which more money can be "created", but in this case it's not a fiat (government) policy decision.
Yes, the point being that it is (generally) easier to control a few government decision makers than exactly everyone who can make a website and start a cryptocurrency first node.
There are many international institutions that check such things (IMF, or just the international money markets, etc). Basically everything that the cryptocurrency-libertarians folks keep on ignoring: turns out such problems were basically solved already.
