Who knows if the currency will work.. maybe China is secretly stashing so one day they will have i as a backup plan that if US doesn't man up and pay bonds and/or gold that is owed to China then they will turn around make a gold backed or bitcoin backed currency that other nations will have no choice but to accept by association. We don't know what these guys are thinking... and whatever you seem to think is usually wrong because they will never go public with that info.

The tech will be disruptive enough... i.e.: a silkroad that cannot be closed for example.. or a truth prediction market that finds answers better than seeking professionals.. disrupting all sorts of industries and professionals that took it easy for way too long. A exchange marketplace which takes over e-commerce on the internet (bitshares) without having to pay enormous currency exchange and other fees to the monopoly credit card companies. It's definitely going to challenge some of the big players who I bet thought there would never be any challengers.

Since bitcoin can't actually be shutdown it will strengthen the resolve of investors of bitcoin each time a disruption takes place. Since there are only 21 million coins and billions of people bitcoin doesn't have to be "accepted" by thepowers to be to be worth alot more than it is today.