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I would have assumed separating money and state simply means the state can no longer control money creation. So yes it would be similar to using gold as a currency. Just high tech. Though with all the hype I'm sure there was a lot of craziness imagining more beyond that.

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That seems like a non-feasible end-goal. If we assume there's any meaningful input involved with the creation of money (mining equipment or graphics cards), then centralization will happen around having the most of the input and securing that, which naturally implies a monopoly on force, which implies a state.

If you allow for fiat money, then almost definitionally, there's a state that everybody agrees is empowered to create the money or else, why would they continue to ensure the value of money?

Gold mining purportedly does cause inflation in gold-backed currency. I guess bitcoin mining is the same, not familiar with that other than the annoying effect on hardware prices. Perhaps the argument is that this gets increasingly harder, as opposed to fiat money creation, which appears to be exponential growth. Plus manipulation of the currency has never been all that consistent, they are constantly trying new things and pushing boundaries. so any claims of future stability comes down solely to predicting how far some president or fed chairman might choose to go next along with how other countries react to that.

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