"They remove the gatekeeper for financial services"
Hardly. Even if you ran your entire business on Bitcoin, you would still need to find an exchange when the tax man came around demanding fiat currency (unless you are dealing in such tiny amounts that you can rely on people you find online, but then your business is probably not very successful). Exchanges are the gatekeepers of cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin, Litecoin, and every other "coin" would have just been worthless toys if exchanges had not been set up.
There is also the reality of cryptocurrency use that must be considered: almost all businesses (legal and illegal) that "accept Bitcoin" actually "accept $NATIONAL_CURRENCY via a Bitcoin exchange/service." Illegal businesses try to decouple their Bitcoin payments from the exchange i.e. they attempt to launder their money (no surprises there); legal businesses proudly announce which Bitcoin service they are using to "accept Bitcoin." Those services and exchanges are gatekeepers in practice, and are increasingly compliant with money service laws and regulations (just like banks).
Hardly. Even if you ran your entire business on Bitcoin, you would still need to find an exchange when the tax man came around demanding fiat currency (unless you are dealing in such tiny amounts that you can rely on people you find online, but then your business is probably not very successful). Exchanges are the gatekeepers of cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin, Litecoin, and every other "coin" would have just been worthless toys if exchanges had not been set up.
There is also the reality of cryptocurrency use that must be considered: almost all businesses (legal and illegal) that "accept Bitcoin" actually "accept $NATIONAL_CURRENCY via a Bitcoin exchange/service." Illegal businesses try to decouple their Bitcoin payments from the exchange i.e. they attempt to launder their money (no surprises there); legal businesses proudly announce which Bitcoin service they are using to "accept Bitcoin." Those services and exchanges are gatekeepers in practice, and are increasingly compliant with money service laws and regulations (just like banks).