> But I can't see it becoming practical (read: successful).
And to add one more point: if it were to become successful, governments would likely make it illegal. Yes, it's decentralized, but they could still sue random people for using it, just like with people downloading music.
So, yes, neat thought experiment, revolutionary idea, but very unlikely to be used by more than a handful of people.
I feel like this is the real achilies' heel of bitcoin. Once governments start losing tax revenue they're going to pull out all the stops. Beyond that, US law enforcement is already concerned with bitcoin because of its use in drug trafficking, online poker, and other dubious crimes then you add in the omnipotent banking lobby who have an obvious agenda to assert. I can't imagine a world where a successful bitcoin would be allowed to thrive.
This is just the kind of thinking (nonsense) that will continue to relegate bitcoin out of the mainstream. It makes no sense from a legislative standpoint to make the actual 'system' of bitcoin illegal, instead, your income and unreported transactions will violate tax codes. Law enforcement will pursue those violations, not the system of bitcoin itself. This is the same as law enforcement currently pursuing people downloading illegal content from torrents, not people using torrents for legitimate purposes.
And to add one more point: if it were to become successful, governments would likely make it illegal. Yes, it's decentralized, but they could still sue random people for using it, just like with people downloading music.
So, yes, neat thought experiment, revolutionary idea, but very unlikely to be used by more than a handful of people.