In Kim Stanley Robinsons Ministry for the Future carbon coins seem to act in this way kinda sorta without depending on a complete decentralization of society or anything particularly revolutionary. They become popular as an investment opportunity because they act like 100 year high yield bonds and then they make tax avoision more difficult because of the record of the blockchain. Anyway its all dependent on the support of national banks in the book but it comes to mind reading this in any case. I just finished the book finally so Im still figuring out what I think of the whole thing...