There are 2.5 billion adults walking the earth right now with no access to bank accounts[1]. I don't know what the "actual" value of bitcoin is, and I don't know if it will win the cryptocurrency race, but I am pretty confident that about a third of the population of the world will have a cryptocurrency wallet before they have a bank account. This is A Big Deal. Electricity is certainly an issue for many of those, but plunging hardware prices on smartphones and wireless internet access will allow them to skip checking accounts and go directly to a global financial network, just as many in the developing world had access to cell phones before land lines. At some point in the next few years, some entrepreneurial kid in some dirt poor corner of the world is going to become relatively wealthy via cryptocurrency; something that just isn't possible without a decentralized financial system. That's when I'll know we've hit the tipping point.
This is lunacy at its finest. Those that have no access to bank accounts live in third world countries. Bitcoin pre-supposes that the user have access to a computer either stationary or mobile (cell phone, tablet, etc.) with access to the internet.
So what proponents of this idea are saying is that bitcoin will somehow, magically?, provide these people with not only the know-how of how to use a cryptocurrency but also provide them with these three indispensable resources:
electricity (dependable and stable)
internet (dependable and stable)
computer (mobile or not)
...all before they can then turn around and use bitcoin.
And that the central bank and government of said country will stand aside and relegate its monetary system and control to an outside force.
You are likely underestimating the "third world" of 2013. There are lots of companies embracing the constraints of SMS alone as almost everybody has a mobile phone in Kenya.
Think about all the things you could do with a Twilio account! Better get working on a product for a free and bright future. :)
EDIT: to address your last point, I don't believe that it is within the power of any but the most sophisticated central governments to prevent adoption of a decentralized financial network. Look at the history of file sharing and bitcoin drug markets, for example. Every regulatory action creates evolutionary pressure on the network, and the succeeding services become more difficult to suppress.
Yes, this is general knowledge. But what you are asserting is a non-sequitur because you are assuming a direct link from adoption of cell-phones in third world countries to the adoption and use of bitcoin as a currency.
I was addressing three of your previous points–electricity, internet, computer. I don't see these as issues, and to assume that cryptocurrency will remain as under-serviced and difficult to use as it currently is would be remarkably shortsighted.
They are even less problematic when you consider them in comparison with the infrastructure required for physical currency banking: vaults, guards, armored cars, auditors, trust, communications.
When everyone already has the ability to use a cellular phone, the additional marginal resources required for using cryptocurrency are almost trivial. The way most banks operate, they would need electricity, Internet, and computers in all of their branch locations anyway.
If you have neither traditional banking nor cryptocurrency, aiming for the latter offers a bigger return on your infrastructure investment.
There are people living in first world countries who have computers but can't get a bank account. If you have a negative report on ChexSystems, you won't be able to get a bank account, even if you have plenty of money for a computer.
Bitcoin isn't going to solve the problem for everyone, but there are definitely people who could get access to bitcoin but not to conventional banking.
Interesting enough, in Germany some banks (or rather credit unions, Sparkassen) pledged to give every comer a basic bank account in return for some regulatory privileges.
You think people in third world countries don't have cell phones and electricity, or privately run payment systems? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa
[1](http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165...)