It's interesting you mentioned government and government-issued currency... I am not an anarchist and think there is obviously a role for government in the world. Clean water, functional roads and bridges, a national army, police etc...

However what's really clear (and also unfortunate) is the debt and deficits countries are running, especially in the US. Although people don't want to talk about it the debt-load and subsequent interest payments will continue to increase over the next 10 years... and the same is true all over Western Europe. All the large 'modern' governments are running huge deficits and that would be ok... if it weren't for the accompanying interest payments. It's like paying off one credit card with another.

I just don't know how this plays out in the next 10 years. My point being that if the government is so indebted and borrowing to make interest payments at nearly full employment... what good is the money they issue? It's a paper promise and an IOU is only good as the creditworthiness of the issuer. Major politicians don't want to even talk about it... and when someone can hold Bitcoin why even hold paper money at all?

As far as gold goes there will always be a place for it it has been around for so long. But you're right the transactability isn't good and digital mediums almost always outperform analogue ones.