Something that doesn't seem to be talked about a whole lot around here is the possibility of a bitcoin powered machine economy. We know the internet of things is coming. Stuff in general is becoming more and more autonomous every day. None of this can happen without something along the lines of bitcoin so let's assume that it's the one.
Assuming bitcoin can scale what do you think the world would look like if most transactions never had any human interference? Would global GDP explode? Would the people in general benefit from something like this or would power be even more concentrated than before?
This is a very questionable problem. And I think with to many unknown factors which make impossible to give a very reasonable answer. It is hard to measure the power and the impact of every above factor since everything will change. If change the nature of the currency which is the blood of every economy and this new "thing" is a qualitative new thing this will affect everything. If I would tell something there can be good things and bad things. The most good thing would be the impossibility of the humans to manipulate the currency of the country. This is a very big problem of the today economies. The use inappropriate of the power to put new money in circulation is or may be the main factor which cause crisis in the future. So, with this way to manage the flow of the money in the economy, hoped to bring significant improvements in the stability of the economy which will adopt such kind of currencies. But on the other hand I see difficult to be managed the economic growth. This result is waited to be within limits but not always these limits are those planned. So it will be difficult to manage the needed amount of money in circulation since the flow of production of such currency is rigorously known and regulated only by the technology applied to produce those. Especially in the cases when the production of the amount of currency cannot follow the economic growth. If it will be one year this problem and the economy will not be satisfied with the needed money this fact will condition the next results of this economy.
These two elements may be only few (even very few) and only macro events waited if an economy which will adopt a digital national coin as its currency. But there can happen to many more. cannot be imagined without being implemented such situation. As for the fact that must be bitcoin such crypto I think is impossible for to many factors. All the above have to do with a crypto produced by the Central Bank of every country or at least managed by it.