It got me thinking that despite being digital and a network, Bitcoin could in some sense, to the extent that it exists outside government controlled/regulated infrastructure, constitute a new form of cash, that is if hard wallet technology can facilitate easy interactions. Is there a sense in which cash might be able to exist in technologically evolved form?
Yes, but bear in mind that just as $1 dollar bills can be whitewashed into $100 bills fraudulently, so can ASICs specifically for brute-forcing bitcoin addresses can be made as well (they don't exist yet, but they might in the future). So the corruption factor isn't really eliminated.