What I think is important about cryptographic assets isn't exactly in the economic properties they have now, but in the potential for reforming governance.
That is, if people are successfully using a crypto asset for their business, AND they are able to use a power and network infrastructure for this that is difficult enough(not perfect) that government authorities aren't successfully applying their "monopoly on force," then government is now pushed into competition with the crypto-anarchic principles and must find a way to become a "better product," enough so that people will prefer government money over crypto.
How will government come up with a product that is better - in a positive way - than a crypto asset? Government has the authority to issue new centralized currencies. This means that if it truly embraced computing - which it never has to date, having never faced a challenge of that nature - it could program a form of currency that is "smart" and bakes in the policy decisions and taxation currently executed by bureaucracy. It would be made attractive to citizens by building in basic income, as well as the service provisions. The result would be more powerful and more efficient than anything we currently know as government. Cash would still exist as a backup, but the government could discourage its use except in emergency situations.
That is, if people are successfully using a crypto asset for their business, AND they are able to use a power and network infrastructure for this that is difficult enough(not perfect) that government authorities aren't successfully applying their "monopoly on force," then government is now pushed into competition with the crypto-anarchic principles and must find a way to become a "better product," enough so that people will prefer government money over crypto.
How will government come up with a product that is better - in a positive way - than a crypto asset? Government has the authority to issue new centralized currencies. This means that if it truly embraced computing - which it never has to date, having never faced a challenge of that nature - it could program a form of currency that is "smart" and bakes in the policy decisions and taxation currently executed by bureaucracy. It would be made attractive to citizens by building in basic income, as well as the service provisions. The result would be more powerful and more efficient than anything we currently know as government. Cash would still exist as a backup, but the government could discourage its use except in emergency situations.