[greyface-]

All "winning" requires in this context is that governments didn't really try to kill it. They had the opportunity, chose not to exercise it, and arguably no longer have the opportunity.

As the article notes, Liberty Reserve was seen as Bitcoin's antecedent when it launched, and many people expected it to meet the same fate - raids, seizures, criminal charges against the founders. Any moderately successful private currency project up until around 2010 was met with this response. Curiously, this never came for Bitcoin. Since there was no centralized throat to strangle, authorities started acting like what Satoshi did wasn't illegal at all. If Satoshi had undertaken the same effort under his real name in the open, I have little doubt that it would have been swiftly shut down, and he would have faced criminal charges. But that didn't happen, the cat's out of the bag, and now any regular schmo is allowed to mint and circulate their own currency.

Beyond that, "winning" is in the eye of the beholder. Many people call it a failure due to its non-ubiquity as p2p cash, and they're not entirely wrong. Even so, it provides those few who need it with a capability that previously was not allowed by authorities to exist.