The reactions to my opening post illustrate how easy it is for otherwise intelligent people to start sounding like an echo chamber once they have financial or ideological reasons to promote a certain worldview.
Agreed, and this is why it is important to engage thoughtful intelligent people like yourself in polite debate.
But the launch of a GoogleCoin or BOACoin could instantly change that and create a crisis of confidence in BTC.
OK, but the devil is in the details. Can you explain what such a coin would look like? Does it involve mining? Is there a block reward? Is it centralized or decentralized? Is it "backed" by something like dollars or gold? Can you send it internationally? Are transactions reversible? Are transactions/accounts anonymous, pseudonymous, or linked to a real person? Are balances confiscatable? What authority decides? Can that authority inflate the money supply? Does it follow the same AML/KYC procedures as our current system? Are there multiple such systems in each country/region, or is there one main system for the entire world?
My conclusion is that there are only two end-games (which end-game is chosen depends on the details above): something free and global like bitcoin, or something very similar to what we already have.
I think we all agree that the bitcoin experiment could collapse (and that is why its value is $800 rather than $100,000+), but I see it as a better monetary system for us or for our children. For this reason, I support it.