BitCoin should not aspire to replace money (what is money: gold, fiat?), but aspire to replace what works as money (= the money supply, which includes credit).
Money is whatever people agree to use as a medium of exchange. Thus, bitcoins are money.
The problem is that credit constitutes the vast majority of the (fiat) money supply, not cache. BitCoin should not be overwhelmed by the same issue (because that credit is a centralized monetary mechanism).
And with the correction going on right now... most people call it 'recession' or 'depression' or 'slow-down' credit is being de-valued. What is being destroyed right now is credit, but not money. The AMB and M1 are rising, meaning the Fed has increased the size of the base money supply it is doing so to reflate the credit markets, but those markets are not needed right now, hence the value of them is falling and the price of commodities is rising in relation to its supply. [1] Therefore, the commodity value of money is rising due to a liquidation of the malinvestment brought on by the manipulation of interest rates, which coordinate capital needs (commodities) through time.
The failing of many of the current crop of deflationists (Prechter, Mish, Denninger) is that they have this quaint notion that credit money is indistinguishable from commodity money [2] and the destruction of it means the destruction of commodity prices along with it. They are wrong. They are two distinct types of money and one can rise while the other falls. This sends mixed pricing signals in the market and breeds all kinds of confusion, especially amongst economists, most of whom are morons.
Ta,
[1] - by holding steady, ie. the CCI is in a tight trading range, commodities are rising in value vs. the amount of credit available.
[2] - in a fiat system, the monetary base, as defined by the central bank's balance sheet acts as the 'commodity' money.