But what's the point? They already have something called dollar. Why bother creating another bitcoin-like currency? If they can print more bitcoins, they can tax it and see who is making transaction, then it's the same as dollar. No point.
Sure, but the market thrives on efficiency. And let's face it - if people can cut out credit card companies as a middle man, it would save stores/consumers a LOT of money. So, if the market is headed towards bitcoin as a currency in the name of efficiency, then the government should want to create a similar currency to compete with bitcoin.
Markets might generally thrive on efficiency, but it typically seems like government-manipulated markets thrive on corruption, and my guess is that banks have a strong ability and strong motive to maintain credit cards and all the rest, since they make such a tidy profit off of it all. For better or worse, market forces aren't the only forces at work here.
Well, I know that there are other forces at work. But if the government hopes to keep people using the dollar, then the dollar has to become at least somewhat competitive. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that if something like bitcoin becomes popular because of skipping out on the middleman, then the government would need to create something similar for the dollar to skip out on the middleman, or no one is going to use it. That is, unless they just straight-out outlaw bitcoins, which is a possibility as well.