I think you need to remember that at the end of the day Bitcoin is software running on the hardware of the internet, so assuming that it stays static in it's capabilities doesn't really make good sense. I mean when we used 14.4kbps modems for dialup to access AOL or Prodigy the sort of bandwidth we had then wasn't very good, but assuming that this would always be the state of the internet would have been made you very wrong. It's the sort of prediction Paul Krugman made when he proclaimed that the internet would be no more important than fax machines.
Bitcoin will have changes made to it's core software that will allow significant scaling improvements-some of that foundation is being laid this year via taproot and we're really talking about a foundational piece that will take years for the benefits to be fully realized with additional future improvements. But there's little reason to believe that the current state of Bitcoin where it's an asset that can't function as a currency will be a permanent one.
At the moment people already have easy to use currencies they can use on their smartphones, so Bitcoin being an easy to use digital currency adds nothing to their lives. What Bitcoin does provide is simply the fact that it's not a fiat currency. This may not seem valuable to people who've grown up in a nation with relatively stable currency value and a sophisticated economic system. But just look at the value of currencies in numerous nations around the world over the last 2 years. Whether you look at Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Lebanon (street value), Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc. what you see are nations where the currency has dropped in value by double digits per year. So if you live in the US or Canada or a EU nation you may not feel the sort of urgency to find a solution to this problem, but people elsewhere aren't as lucky. You also have to remember that people in these countries can't just buy reputable US securities via a smartphone app like people in most advanced nations can. Their choices for storing their wealth come down to literally their native currency that's tanking in value, blackmarket US dollars, precious metals, and Bitcoin.
I honestly think if you think outside of your own life experiences and look at the experience elsewhere in the world then the actual true value of Bitcoin becomes much more apparent. Then the energy use stops looking so plainly wasteful and in fact you might start wondering whether the fact that video game consoles like the Xbox actually use significantly more power than Bitcoin (and significantly less renewables) makes Bill Gates a bit of a hypocrite when he attacks Bitcoin.
If it actually someday achieves adoption as a currency that's used in at least many nations then the total aggregate value would have to be a significant amount larger than gold. I think many people have a very US centric point of view where they sort of take it for granted that their currency is used as a global currency standard for trade and is relatively stable and strong, but this isn't the case for many countries on the planet. So it's not entirely implausible that someday this sort of adoption could occur.
It is of course, still quite a longshot, but then again I thought $10,000 Bitcoin was a longshot and somehow it's at $60,000 now.
If this ever occurred this would likely be something many years off, but my guess is that a lot of the larger institutions moving in see this sort of possible incredible future return so they're putting small amounts in since it's a reasonably good asymmetric bet. Even if you think the actual chance for success is something like 20%, if you believe that if this actually did occur that it would give you 20X or 50X returns then it's still considered a reasonable bet, you'd just bet a small amount of the money you have. And that's pretty much what you're seeing the braver companies do now.
Bitcoin will have changes made to it's core software that will allow significant scaling improvements-some of that foundation is being laid this year via taproot and we're really talking about a foundational piece that will take years for the benefits to be fully realized with additional future improvements. But there's little reason to believe that the current state of Bitcoin where it's an asset that can't function as a currency will be a permanent one.
At the moment people already have easy to use currencies they can use on their smartphones, so Bitcoin being an easy to use digital currency adds nothing to their lives. What Bitcoin does provide is simply the fact that it's not a fiat currency. This may not seem valuable to people who've grown up in a nation with relatively stable currency value and a sophisticated economic system. But just look at the value of currencies in numerous nations around the world over the last 2 years. Whether you look at Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Lebanon (street value), Nigeria, Zimbabwe, etc. what you see are nations where the currency has dropped in value by double digits per year. So if you live in the US or Canada or a EU nation you may not feel the sort of urgency to find a solution to this problem, but people elsewhere aren't as lucky. You also have to remember that people in these countries can't just buy reputable US securities via a smartphone app like people in most advanced nations can. Their choices for storing their wealth come down to literally their native currency that's tanking in value, blackmarket US dollars, precious metals, and Bitcoin.
I honestly think if you think outside of your own life experiences and look at the experience elsewhere in the world then the actual true value of Bitcoin becomes much more apparent. Then the energy use stops looking so plainly wasteful and in fact you might start wondering whether the fact that video game consoles like the Xbox actually use significantly more power than Bitcoin (and significantly less renewables) makes Bill Gates a bit of a hypocrite when he attacks Bitcoin.