> (unless some large entity owns mining majority).

Without control of the nodes, the mining hashpower is only a secondary concern. If the miners ever tried to enforce their will, the nodes would simply change the PoW algorithm, and the miners would effectively be out of work.

The cynical example:

- People live in countries

- countries levy taxes to be paid in "real money"

- banks deal with the "real money"

- BTC exchanges have to work with these banks + gov't

This assumes that future commerce will always revert back to 'real money'.

Commerce is irrelevant.

At the end of the day, you need to pay your taxes - presumably in your national currency.

Suppose you had a commerce that only accepted bitcoins. How will you pay your taxes ?

a good thought experiment. I think it's likely that the government forms a symbiotic relationship with Bitcoin if things get that far.

If the public does not want national currencies, then governments need to make them wanted. Physical force is an obvious approach, but probably impractical.

You don't think they can create their own distributed ledger?

Oh I see. Bank/corporation owned currency is a weird concept....

What do you mean? Obviously if they can create their own blockchain they can issue their own currency, too. It's just a book of who has how much.

Blockchains only improve the efficiency of permissionless system. If you're going to create an in-house currency, it would be idiotic to use something as un-scalable as a blockchain.

What makes Bitcoin, not an in house currency, also not idiotic in your case?

Permissionless ownership.

Instead here your gatekeepers are speculators and miners and early adopters.

The 'gatekeepers' are anyone who has bitcoin.

Even further, there are no gatekeepers...

It sounds like something you'd find in a cyberpunk novel.