One may frame this whole "failed versus not failed" as a power struggle between two camps:
a. Those who own a large stake in the original BitCoin - such as the developers, miners, venture capitalists, the Winklevoss Twins, etc.
and
b. Those who don't own a large stake in BitCoin currently, but wish to own a large stake in the dominant cryptocurrency. Wall Street...
When you attack BitCoin on any grounds, technological or otherwise, you are attacking those stakeholders.
a. To create a new network for digital financial transactions? This seems to be what Fred Wilson is writing about, and I agree with him that the jury is still out.
b. To create a distributed currency free from government bureaucracy? Bitcoin seems well-separated from the U.S. federal government, but lately it also seems like Bitcoin has organically sprouted its own messy government bureaucracy.
Bitcoin, nor its tokenholders, cheerleaders, etc. do not have the violence-backed power to tax. So while it may have the nasty trappings of a bureaucracy, I don't think it sinks to the level of a government bureaucracy.
Edit. Drunk and offensive. But my point still stands.