I think I'd rather have a government with decades of fiscal management, bad or otherwise look after money than an organisation that has absolutely no accountability whatsoever.
What about a protocol regulated by mathematics and well-designed economic game theory, controlled by no one party or group, which only gets stronger security when attacked?
Game theory is loosely based on the idea of behavioral economics, which is an imperfect science.
The fact that the Winkelvoss twins have to store their BTC password separated into several hidden physical vaults (bank safes mind you) is all you have to know about how the trust system actually works in real life.[0]
> What about a protocol regulated by mathematics and well-designed economic game theory...
Well, THAT protocol is turning out to be a vehicle for investment thrill-rides, where extreme volatility seems to be the central, most defining characteristic. I mean, if you put a bitcoin in your pocket, you have no idea what it will be worth when you pull it out of your pocket.
Currency should be a medium for exchanging goods and services. It should be boring and reliable.
As I see it, governments can raise money three ways: taxes, bond sales, and their monetary printing presses.
Bitcoin removes the third option, helping to hold government abuses it check a little bit. It's not a solution for everything, but hopefully it restores money to a function of communicating value rather than being both political control and theft. If Bitcoin works it will also force governments towards greater fiscal responsibility.
Bitcoin is not a perfect solution for all problems, but a partial solution in a deeply broken world.
Governments also have a number of additional regulatory functions in addition to raising funds. Things like seizing the proceeds of crime, preventing fraud etc. Monetary policy is more than just a money raising exercise. There can be good reasons for devaluing a currency.
Think for a moment about the implications of a world with a single currency mediated through a block-chain predicated on the idea than no-one can ever get more than 50% of the processing capacity. Think about Angola, China, Sweden and the US sharing that currency
The developers can propose changes but they can't force anyone to adopt them. Moreover, the software itself is open source so if they try to push anything too unpopular a new group of developers can take over who better represent the community's interests.
Bitcoin is actually using a lot of energy that would have simply been wasted: much of bitcoin's hashing power comes from renewable hydropower that wasn't already being used as it was too remote to economically transmit to cities. In most places, if one mines Bitcoin on non-renewable electric grids, it's incredibly hard to be profitable.