Bitcoin is way, way more than a currency. It allows assets to flow like email. And that is just the beginning. Bitcoin is not required for that, it's not even

Bitcoin is way, way more than a currency. It allows assets to flow like email. And that is just the beginning. Bitcoin is not required for that, it's not even very good at it. Cryptographic signing of assets, asymmetric public-key cryptography, digital certificates, etc are not unique to bitcoin and a far simpler system with far fewer fundamental flaws and third party dependencies could be constructed if you want to track assets and replace paper certificates. Trustless, pseudo-anonymous transactions are significantly less useful than verified identity transactions with reversibility, central authorities, regulation, insurance, etc. There are a lot of properties of bitcoin that make it wildly unsuitable for tracking financial assets (or as a digital currency). Would you trust a Russian stock market?...Your reluctance to engage in these markets means entrepreneurs there do not have access to capital. How does Bitcoin solve the problems of world peace and corrupt regimes? A simple rubber-hose attack will render up your key or the computer your coins reside on just as it will any other asset, and other assets can be appropriated whether stakes of ownership are stored via the blockchain or not.