Another reason deflationary currency is perceived as bad is not just because it makes life harder for debt owners, but because it can lead to its own form of boom-and-bust cycles by reducing economic activity.

If you know, for example, that your cash holdings were going to grow at 10% per year, then you'd be far less willing to spend any or invest in other assets, as merely putting bitcoin under a mattress increases value. This will reduce consumption and investment in the larger economy, inducing a recession or depression until overall demand for currency fell, pushing those who hold it to spend or invest to avoid losses. Of course, that equilibrium won't be permanent, and the cycle would begin a new, but with the major disadvantage that central banks nor government monetary policy can reduce the severity of the swings. (Although it's a matter of faith among Austrians that somehow there would either not be any more business cycles, or somehow the boom/bust wouldn't be "as bad")

Bitcoin to me looks like a good way to have a distributed settlement/clearing house system for transactions. But as a replacement for fiat currency, nope.

Bloated governments are grasping at straws. Look at the US with FATCA, taxing it's citizens wherever they are. I prefer to keep socking away savings in my offline bitcoin account and then exchanging it for Euros when I'm back home. Just look at all the people who had 'safe' accounts in Cyprus, or in the US underwritten by FannieMae. Bitcoin is the Libertarian's / Anarcho-Capitalist's dream; true freedom from the whims of greedy governments.

Bitcoin is not viable. A centralized fiat crypto currency, with the same mechanism as bitcoin except centrally authorized by government authority rather than mined is very viable for a government. All transactions become trackable and every cent in circulation can be accounted for.

Let's extrapolate, and say that no country should adopt a purely digital currency. Would that be accurate?

I don't know too much about the topic domain, so for those who do, what would be required of a purely digital currency to be a good candidate for a national currency?

i actually think this is a good idea -- wouldn't it encourage people to save money, if the government can't deflate it away, as many do, today?

In addition to the 'print too much currency' problem there is also a 'print currency for my cronies' problem.

I had a reasonable polite comment here but got a downvote within 10 seconds. Downvote away further. Geez.