It should be pointed out that US operated as a democratic republic for over a century on the gold standard - which bitcoins shares a lot of properties with, except that bitcoin can be transmitted at distance easily, whereas gold cannot.
The gold standard was dropped by all major currencies in the 20th century because it was deflationary, and now most major currencies can be transmitted at distance.
Bitcoin on the other hand has a set supply and supply schedule, making it deflationary and inadequate as a currency.
This is one of the great economics canards of the 20th century. The gold standard was dropped because western nations accumulated too much war debt during the Great War (world war I) and weren't able to inflate it away under a gold standard. That's not the fault of the gold standard but of the war and the governments that refused to acknowledge their insolvency. The 19th century saw perhaps the greatest rise of living standards in history and it was all achieved on a gold standard, which greatly facilitated world trade. As Keynes wrote, in The Economic Consequences of the Peace:
"The various currencies, which were all maintained on a stable basis in relation to gold and to one another, facilitated the easy flow of capital and of trade to an extent the full value of which we only realize now, when we are deprived of its advantages. Over this great area there was an almost absolute security of property and of person."
Keynes was one of the great advocates for dropping the gold standard, calling it a barbarous relic - as his biographer Skidelsky says, "useful as a constitutional monarch but disastrous as a despot".
The various central bankers clinging to gold - against all evidence - caused the great depression's deflationary spiral.
