I took a few classes in money/banking and currencies for my upper-level electives and really, the best features (or worst, if you're a major govt or the IMF) of BTC is that it allows individuals to circumvent currency/capital controls, deepens economic sanctions in situations like US-Iran (Iran can't set up a currency price floor if unregulated trading is allowed via a floating rate like BTC via the internet), and also removes the ability of govts to tax any capital gains in related markets.

As for the UC prof's paper, any attempt on the IMF's part to take over BTC would easily be mitigated when everyone raises their ask prices to obscene amounts in response to the attack...everyone has their literal 'price' at which they'd sell out, but if you were to model the situation from a game theory perspective, the holders of BTC would still collectively see gains while the non-holders and the IMF would see heavy losses.  Essentially, what it would amount to would be another redistribution of wealth into the hands of BTC holders.  And even if the IMF did manage to buy out the required 51%, what's to stop the BTC community from just re-creating BTC, switching to LTC, or switching to another altcoin, etc?  As much as they hate to admit it, the IMF is pretty much up the creek without a paddle on this one...