National Security Implications of Virtual Currency [pdf]
rand.org
rand.org
> Overall, resilient public cyber key terrain could prove a double-edged sword: enabling DoD to project power, both in terms of information as well as cyberspace operations, but also enabling enemies of the United States to do the same, and with a lower barrier of entry than before.
I think you could argue this is a bit what the government already thinks of the Tor Project, although they call it 'loosely decentralized'.
I seriously whether or not politically we will actually head down this path; which each successive government I'm beginning to see the fear that cypherpunk-utopia, anarchocapitalist-style decentralization may bring to nation-states and the risks inherent to some citizens in that process.
From a politician's (very misguided) view of laws solving problems, it's easy to smash the "resilient public cyber key terrain", while still getting the edge of the sword you want (allowing these technologies to provoke unrest in countries you don't like) - you pass laws that ruthlessly enforce the use of Tor et al on your own territory, run a lot of psychological operations against the use of those tools by your citizenry, and then spread the shit out of that same technology through covert channels to everywhere else in the world, for those ballsy enough to be "separatists" in their own countries. The politician will think that assuming a powerful security organization and steep enough penalties domestically, you can probably eke a net benefit out of the technology outside of your nation-state with little downsides within you own.
This leads to a scary way of blunting the edge of the sword that a politician thinks could hurt them domestically, and I'm afraid that perhaps in some ways we're going down that path (RIPA 2000 is a good example of that, any type of forced-key-disclosure type of thing, or any type of key escrow and tying laws to requiring key escrow.) In the end it doesn't really work, but it does shed a lot more blood in the process.
not all virtual currency is "Virtual Currency"