I'm genuinely curious in different people's answers to this question about a hypothetical far off circumstance where a cryptocurrency would replace the US dollar- I personally have been having trouble seeing the benefits that many people seem to implicitly assume in discussions.
The negatives I see:
1. Inability of a central bank to regulate the econony through quantitative easing and other economic policy. An economy based on cryptocurrency seems like it'd have the same problems with return to a gold standard, mostly financial instability. I understand that for some ideologues this is a plus, most mainstream Americans and economists and basically the government of every developed country would tend to disagree.
2. It could feasibly become more difficult to enforce tax policy. As an alternative positive, an open ledger monitored by a savy IRS might actually make enforcing tax policy easier. Again, understand that for some ideologues an untaxable currency is a plus, but most people would disagree strongly.
3. The transition from fiat to cryptocurrency would likely be chaotic and result in a transfer of wealth along uncertain lines - who would gain? Who would lose? Somehow I doubt the working poor would be the big winners.
So what do other people see as the key longterm economic positives from cryptocurrency?
1. Decentralized
2. Anonymous depending on the coin
3. Less fees (once scaling is fixed) for international needs
4. Non-government / state-controlled currency