- snipped for clarity -
I fast-fingered my previous comment before noticing that you were still active in this thread. I apologize for this (but don't retract my comments of course.)
Here is my contention and, respectfully, where I think you go wrong:
My bias is to "get big fast" -- I think the only way Bitcoin thrives is for lots of people to use it and to be happy using it. If it is a tiny little niche thing then it is much easier for politicians or banks to smother it, paint it as "criminal money", etc. They probably can't kill it, but they sure could make life miserable enough to slow down adoption by a decade or three.
The powers that be will do all of these things for one simple reason: All of these negatives are perfectly true and then some. There are other things which are true as well, of course, or I doubt that either you or I would be involved with it. That does not matter. It
will be attacked for
all that it is. The negatives will be played up for PR reasons while the positives will be at the driving motives behind the attacks. I also suggest that Bitcoin was recognized long ago as being to potentially damaging for the attacks to be left in the hands of amateurs.
I think you are simply flat wrong as an engineer, systems analyst, politician, or historian to think that somehow growth is the best strategy to thwart the attacks. We'll have to outgrow the power of the world's entrenched powers to win on brute strength, and that will never be allowed.