"This would now require far more money to invest in hardware than most countries’ annual GDP."
No, it wouldn't. It would require approx $60m-worth of ASICs.
To any bank or Govt, that's chickenfeed.
One thing we have going for us in that department is that we're already tapping out the max production facility of all ASIC manufacturers and the free market on these products that basically print money will assure that it will stay that way for a very long time.
...So on top of that $60m worth of ASICs, they'd have to foot the larger bill of R&D for their own ASIC line, and then the manufacturing facility to make them... So perhaps closer to a Billion, I'd think.
Of course uncle sam could afford that too, so I'm more depending on the fact that this community has shown that it has a reset button for bitcoin to dissuade them rather than the hardware itself.
ASICs are just chips. VAST production capacity is out there. And the $60m figure includes the chip design - do you really think Avalon and ASICminer spent a billion dollars on R&D?
Hell, buy one of their chips and clone it. Job done.
And sorry to dent your optimism, but a 'reset button' is only helpful when it doesn't have to be used 100 times per week...
