If your perspective is that Bitcoin isn't going to be a ubiquitous alternative to the USD for general purchases until after the government collapses and no longer has the political power to prop up the dollar, then I have bad news for you about your currency's usefulness as an anti-authoritarian weapon/tool.
Before that, gold and silver were often used as lowest common denominators internationally. See The power of gold: the history of an obsession by Bernstein for that. However metals weren't used everywhere: e.g., China used paper currencies for many years, and giant rocks where used in Micronesia:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
Money: the true story of a made-up thing by Goldstein has a good pop-history overview.
Power often didn't come into play for currency choice, and neither did things "implode" as opposed to a gradual shifting in preference amongst currency users.
Power comes into play as to dictating what currency people are forced to use. That the old coins had to be handed back in or dictating the adaptation. They implode when there is nothing backing it what so ever. At its core its Greshams law at work, with currencies or with other store of values.
If i am not mistaken Graeber has quite a few examples of this mechanism.