If bitcoin is successful, I think existing national currencies will eventually roll their own and it will be absorbed in the same way as promissory notes were.

If bitcoin is successful, I think existing national currencies will eventually roll their own and it will be absorbed in the same way as promissory notes were. Bitcoin is a revolutionary way to run a currency, but it is still a currency and national banks have already successfully absorbed several monetary revolutions. If anything, they are getting rather good at it.