1. hi dig,
i think some folks consider governments so disreputable that they should not be responsible for anything. issuance of currency is one of these things. it should be managed by markets. freedom etc.
i think some folks think it critical to have a store of value just as others think there must be a root of trust.
i think some folks think avoiding foreign exchange costs is more valuable than having a local monetary tool available to national banks.
i think some folks think that we need forms of digital currency that are as private as forms of cash.
i guess gilder sees the marriage of tc and bitcoin as a promised land of secrecy and stored value and statelessness and the avoidance of currency transaction costs.
for myself, i see governments as the guarantors of value (eg when unregulated, supply side economies implode), exchange costs as a small price to pay for local control, and i think tc privacy is by no means equivalent to cash as with tc, reasonably suspicious police forces can always review your transactions and your account. no secret suitcase stashed in switzerland for tc-bitcoin users!
it's the usual gilder thing. ignore inconvenient issues. promote a single-sided principle as inviolable and then extrapolate all the way to imbalance and absurdity.
2. some folks have said the infrastructure of bitcoin is more valuable than the currency.
for myself, it seems like a currency for hopeful, faith-based cultists. don't know much about the infrastructure.
i wonder why wave's ex-ceo would find it appealing.
3. i am sure the greeks, irish, spaniards, portuguese and others can witness how great an idea it is to share a currency with lots of states in a region in which a person cannot easily move to find a new job.
oh wait.
4. the funny thing is, state currencies rarely fail. the reason folks always talk about weimar germany and zimbabwe is because they are about the only examples. generally, value depreciation is managed over long periods. this is also known as inflation, which we kinda need some of to make economies go. but stored currency also attracts interest. by and large, economies grow in total value after inflation is calculated.
but bitcoin wants to have no kind of intervention in the value of a currency. does a bitcoin pay interest? or is it meant to magically increase in value? indeed, i'm not sure why it is meant to have any value in the first place.
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