It is an interesting phenomena the rise of Bitcoin. In many ways Bitcoin questions and challenges how we have thought about money, banks, and government the last several decades at least. As long as I've been around.
Like many I wish I'd thrown $100 into Bitcoin back when you could buy them for $1 each. Oh well.
One concept is there's no "they" with Bitcoin. No central bank. No ultimate federal government authority. That takes some getting used to. With traditional currency, money and state tend to be pretty closely tied. Also with traditional money we accept there is some kind of central bank authority somehow controlling some unseen money supply with interest rates or whatever. We accept the state, perhaps in conjunction with a central bank, can as it deems necessary print money, aka "quantitative easing" to use a more polite term.
Bitcoin is more like true property. To own Bitcoin is to truly own it. Bitcoin cannot be frozen, zeroed out, seized, transferred to another, garnished, blocked access. Also if you have network, you can have access to your Bitcoin wherever you are. Unlike traditional money in a bank, a central authority can access your funds, or block your access, without your consent. With no intermediary such as banks, you can both direct access your Bitcoin, and prevent third party access through the intermediary.
Speaking of property. Banks are required to report cash withdrawals over $10,000 to the government. The individual is required to fill out forms saying what the withdraw is for. No wiretap, warrant, or court order is required. Why is this? Is the balance in your bank account not your own private property? Apparently not entirely. And yet nobody questions this, it's just passively accepted.
The withdraw reporting rule just shows that with traditional currency, in a real way it isn't entirely your property. In a way it's akin to a passport. You can hold it and use it within certain boundaries, but underneath it is the property of the nation state that issued it.
From its mathematical structure, Bitcoin cannot be created by a central authority. That is a powerful concept. It basically cuts "them" out of the picture from the outset, with no way to muscle in. With traditional money, we have to trust and rely on the national government and central banks to guard and maintain the integrity of the national currency. However there's nothing really preventing a government or central bank from creating raw new money out of thin air. So if you come to own a Bitcoin you don't have to be concerned that an identical Bitcoin could be legally counterfeited by a government or central bank straight off a printing press, thus diluting and devaluing your property.
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A note on how bad and corrosive printing money can be. A short tale. Suppose a businessman owns two apartment buildings side by side in a lower middle class neighborhood. There's a fair size lawn around and in between the buildings. The landlord wants the grass mowed so that his site looks good and the tenants are happy. You agree to mow the lawn for $100. He provides the lawn mower and gas.
On the agreed day you arrive at 9 AM. You spend several hours mowing the lawn. About 5 PM you are finished and packed up. He hands you a $100 bill as agreed. You take the $100 you earned and decide to go to a local bar for a $20 burger and beer deal.
Now at the same time a government truck rolls by with a printing press producing $100 bills. The government hands your neighbor a $100 bill hot off the printing press, just for being fabulous. He takes his $100 and goes to the same local bar.
Now at the bar your $100 spends identically to the printed $100, there's no difference. The difference is that you had to do physical work in the sun all day to obtain your $100, while the other did not have to do anything to get an identical $100.
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