As for the military: That may well be true, but who is willing to spend that kind of money in a sustained fashion just to have a system that is safe from govern

As for the military: That may well be true, but who is willing to spend that kind of money in a sustained fashion just to have a system that is safe from government takeover? Libertarian ideology only gets you so far. Will libertarians put their money where their mouth is? As for the bloated global financial industry, there are two points. First, it does more than just a simple ledger (think the overhead of dealing with fraud in a way that people are willing to accept). Second, it's plausible that Bitcoin will help de-bloat the financial industry, at least the payment services part, and that would certainly be welcome. That doesn't mean that Bitcoin will survive in the long run, though.