Let’s assume BTC replaces fiat (USD). One way that it changes what you’ve described is that you wouldn’t be forced to gamble on equities or other assets to stay afloat. You’d have the option to simply hang on to your currency until another asset class enticed you enough to invest. It affords you some time to simply do nothing. Currently, you can’t afford to sit and wait and research assets. You need to stay out of fiat to stay afloat, constantly restructure your portfolio, etc. if you don’t do these things, you bleed buying power over time.
With sound money, people could work and save without needing to constantly gamble just to
maintain buying power.
Do you think that soundness is enough to convince the people being born now to pursue BTC when they're older?
They'll see it as this thing that the old people are all hoarding, and they'll have none of it... Why sign on for an uphill battle for BTC over any other token?
Seems to me that crypto projects should have tangible side effects, so that future generations can value them (or not) based on whether they want to see more of those effects. Compared to that, a fat BTC wallet in cold storage looks like somebody who sucked value out of their community rather than reinvesting it to make positive changes. Why reward such a person by valuing their tokens?
If Bitcoin were to always increase in value (deflationary) there is a strong disincentive to ever buy anything with it. This makes it useless as a currency which means it can't replace USD. Why buy something now when you can buy it for less in the future? You could buy the famous pizza for a tiny fraction of a Bitcoin today
As long as we have fiat, bitcoin WILL always increase in value. Because bitcoin supply is capped and fiat will continue to lose buying power year after year. At this stage, there is no incentive to hold fiat and huge incentive to hold as much bitcoin as possible.
If bitcoin replaces fiat, bitcoin becomes the main representation of value. It no longer goes up against a trading pair of fiat. I speculate that its buying power would stabilize and become fairly static.
I don't think you've thought this through, if holding bitcoin accelerates in value more than say companies actually doing things then we're going to transfer a substantial portion of today's current wealth to the people who currently own bitcoin.
If BTC replaces fiat, I don't believe it would increase in buying power at a rapid rate. I think it would gradually increase in buying power over time only because the total supply will gradually shrink due to lost coins / dust /etc.
Imagine what would happen in this imaginary world when GDP increases. More things are being produced which means there are more things that need to be sold. But there is a fixed number of coins to buy things with. Each coin has to be able to buy more things.
With sound money, people could work and save without needing to constantly gamble just to maintain buying power.