A good question to start with! would bitcoin exist if we lived in an authoritarian dispensation, a monopolistic society that is solely controlled by one person? With widely distributed nodes there are little chance bitcoin would be widely spread for adoption as it would be difficult to rebel against those in power, maybe It would have been called (survival liberal digital currency) used only by the rebels secretly, imagine a world where only one person gets to make all the rules then there wouldn't be anything called bitcoin.
Bitcoin is apolitical, which makes it accessible for anyone no regional or ethnical background check is required to hold it, this is one of the reasons individuals in diverse countries can easily store bitcoin.
Nigeria a case study
Nigeria, where dominant population are youth thriving to alleviate themselves from shackle of bad governance and poverty have been one of the leading African countries to adopt use of digital currency, it government on the hand see bitcoin as a threat and discourage its centralized system (banks) from transacting blockchain based currencies, thanks to peer to peer transaction (p2p) service. Media have played their part making the masses to believe bitcoin is associated with scam only fraudsters deal with bitcoin and online currencies.
With millions of youths caught in between the line to choose between poverty and blockchain innovation most have followed the later and doing well in the crypto space, I personally earn living from daily blockchain activities which makes me a sole beneficiary of blockchain technology here in Nigeria.
Other propaganda used
Bitcoin energy excessive use would have been a top notch reason why it should be ban totally, it was a well devised means to highlight the danger of cutting power shortage which would been have used for other production means, China bitcoin ban, regulatory policies, bitcoin a safe haven for scammers, government not recognizing bitcoin as legal tender are all used to disrupt bitcoin adoption.
Without democracy
What happens when people rebel against authority? Chaos! Truth is without democracy playing it part today there will be little movement for bitcoin.
Worse case scenario would be a group of people who will be considered freedom group for decentralized monetary system (this would have been a joke I guess with zero chance of having massive support)
Bottom line is bitcoin needs democracy to thrive, every era comes with its challenge, century ago it would be ridiculous to make such calculative move of introducing an idea of decentralized currency, a single entity currency for the worl to unanimously use.