As much as i'd like for fiat to die horrible death, i know that in process ALOT of people will loose all they have and probably there will be some blood spilled too so i cant really say i'm hoping it comes as soon as possible. Changes like that are volatile and very unpredictable. Yes, change is much needed but i dont really know how is it possible to make it slowly and paynless. Once people start jumping from fiat to whatever alternative (hopefully bitcoin), process will start slowly (or it already started) and will gain speed as it goes. Once it reaches certain treshold, it will go so fast that most of the common people wont have time to react and alot of value that those people have in fiat will dissapear.
I suspect that IF the powers that be ( financial and political) want to have a mild transition from fiat to crypto they can do it IF they want to
Why/how?
1 most people in the World are not affected by value of fiat savings
a) Half just have NO MONEY at all !
Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-statsA slightly older report
http://worldcentric.org/conscious-living/social-and-economic-injusticeb) of the other half in Western "rich" LOL societies like the USA, 76% live from pay check to pay check
Roughly three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with little to no emergency savings, according to a survey released by Bankrate.com Monday.http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/c) Those rich who are not "dumb" will monitor the situation and hedge their bets once they accept that this is good for everyone, including them in the long run and that it can no longer be stopped. The honest and/or wise ones will not lose much, in fact they could well gain wealth in the process.
So , arguably, only a minority of the worlds
total population would be adversely affected if a well organized and gradual transition takes place.
I can see a scenario where governments eventually embrace crypto currency..introducing their own.
It has some fantastic advantages that we have heard about before like frictionless/ cost efficient etc. and for this reason they would want it but only WHEN it is no longer possible/ acceptable to inflate by printing and it may well take a global fiat crash to get to that point in time. That crash will not be because of the emergence of cryprto's but due to their reckless policies over decades and the pain/ blood on the streets will occur for that reason. Crypto currency would make a good solution once that scenario happens.
A transition to a new National crypto could be be a boon for Governments....All money in BANKS and financial instruments ( legal money) will be exchanged automatically at the government rate. All money in private hands would be exchanged at authorized institutions.. all illegal money such as from crime/ undeclared for tax purposes will have problems getting exchanged ( though not impossible) but it will have a cleansing effect to some degree.
I have been through this type of scenario when the UK went decimal in 1971 so I know it works and can be managed without too many problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_DayQuick decision
But remarkably it took the government only seconds to decide to get rid of the currency that had served Britain for thousands of years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12346083summary
I believe a global transfer to crypto currency is a matter of when..not if
The percentage of the worlds population adversely affected in a transition would be (well) under 20%
Bitcoin will co exist with new National/ or economic block Cryptos eg north American/ ASEAN
It would be nicer to have them plan and manage the transition well ( and I am 100% sure that there are people studying/ working on this) because it is just BETTER than fiat and not wait until there is too much "blood on the streets"