I agree with your estimates regarding the potential price of Bitcoin (although I'm probably on the lower side of hundreds of thousands, something like $100k-$200k) and about the timing (I expect it to be somewhat earlier, but the beginning of 2025 makes sense to me). An idea to invest and forget isn't bad, unless a person is very uncertain about Bitcoin and believes that there's a good chance Bitcoin won't recover in the foreseeable future (let's say, over the next 10 years). It's not impossible, so it should be taken into account. And it's also important that while forgetting about the investment, we must not forget where it's being stored and how to access that wallet. I think some early adopters invested in Bitcoin and forgot, but then unfortunately couldn't make use of it because of not having access to the funds.

My country has a pretty bad economy, and we've been through very high inflation, so generic news about recession don't affect me at all.
The consequences of a recession seem accurate in the original post, but things to do aren't all similar to what I would do. Some emergency funds are good, but if your currency is likely to experience hyperinflation, it's important to think of keeping those funds in something else (a more stable fiat or perhaps Bitcoin). As for reducing expenses, I wouldn't do that because it's that kind of attitude that makes the recession worse, actually, as people reduce expenses and stall the economy this way. On the contrary, I spend when there's something nice or useful to buy, and think of it as my contribution to trying to stimulate the economy by keeping the money circulating. As for education and additional income source, it sounds reasonable. Maintaining health is always a good thing to do, and being patient should be a part of that.

The op lists common reasons for banning Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, so I'm not sure that it's even a question.
Of course, officially cited reasons may be different from actual reasons, and the actual ones may involve the desire to have more control over the population, as well as successful lobbying by banks leading to the government defending their interests.
Looking through the thread, it seems to me that many of us here share the view that the desire of more oversight, control over citizens is among the top reasons.

I know using a card isn't totally safe, but I've never fallen a victim of card cloning or anything like that. Tapping a card continuously isn't typically a thing in my country, as, by default, the PIN is asked on the second tap and for amounts over $20 on all attempts.
If we're talking about Bitcoin in a custodial wallet (user-friendly, easy to use, instant transactions), I'm sure it's susceptible to similar risks. If it's a non-custodial wallet, I think the risks of someone getting the money are much lower, but it's also harder to use it for payments, considering transaction speed.

For now, it's just a Twitter speculation that can easily turn out to be inaccurate. But sure, let's assume for now that it's true.
Initially, I couldn't quite understand what's the connection and why the CEO is allegedly quitting, but now I see that Craig Wright is a Chief Scientist at that company. Still, though: why not fire Craig instead of leaving the company? What good does that do if Craig remains employed and a person who doesn't want to be involved with him leaves?
Craig is irrelevant, I agree with that. And I'll easily believe that he manipulated evidence in court. But I don't understand why the CEO would quit over it rather than fire the guy.

When you discover something, it means it's already there, and you find out about it yourself/for your people. Satoshi created the first crypto blockchain rather than discovered it, I think.
I agree with the op that it's still a pretty early adoption stage and that the achievements are already amazing, though. But as for development of various crypto projects, I think that if it's additional infrastructure for Bitcoin and perhaps other cryptos (exchanges, wallets, things like that), then yeah, it can develop further. But if it's development in a sense of the diversity of altcoins and their missions, I think we've already seen that the hype didn't match the reality of things, and while occasionally some useful-ish things appear, most turns out to be rubbish.

I didn't consider Hong Kong that big of a deal because it's a very peculiar part of China where things are done differently and which even has a different legal status from most of China. But Shanghai's a very different story, as it's one of the biggest Chinese cities. The court suggest viewing Bitcoin as personal property, not a currency, but it's still significant. Is this decision likely to be overruled? Or is it likely that this court's actually expressing the view of the government, considering how centralized power is in that country?

a. Draw
b. 1-1
c. Newcastle
d. Newcastle
e. Yes 
f. Newcastle
g. Newcastle
h. 23'

Why would anyone want to cash out that much money? What kind of purpose can that be used for?
I can't really imagine a situation like that, but I think that such a huge amount of money calls for an OTC deal. Just after googling a bit, I can see that some major companies, including Coinbase, have OTC desks for big cashouts, so I would probably contact one of those, learn how these things work and do it like that. This way I wouldn't negatively impact the market, I wouldn't have to wait forever for my deal to be done, and I'd establish useful professional connections, I guess.
Needless to say, I'm sure I'd have to pay a sell tax on that money, which I should, considering how much I own in that hypothetical situation.

Bitcoin transactions are usually slower than bank transactions (not actually because the banks merely block the money on the account, but in practical use) and more expensive, unless it's a very big transaction and/or an international transaction.
The most appealing thing to me is probably #2 of the original post: Bitcoin being independent of authorities and different from the traditional financial system. It's just empowering to have something like that, I guess.

The US inflation has been pretty stable at a fairly low rate, something policymakers consider acceptable. And the global reserves decline isn't really showing any kind of trend, as the USD is still at the top without any close contenders, and it's been fluctuating somewhat over the years while keeping this generally strong dominance.
I think using some BTC as a reserve can be a good thing, but it's also a matter of whether other countries will be willing to trade in it internationally (and with the negative IMF's position it's unlikely) it can kind of become dead weight. Foreign reserves need to be currencies that other countries are very willing to use for international trade, loans, and other similar things. I don't think Bitcoin has reached that level of acceptance yet.

Google has certainly been helpful to me as a search engine, even though I know that there are valid points against it and even things that I find annoying. But I guess it's a force of habit to use it, and it's neatly integrated into Chrome, which is my go-to browser. I've been using Google for around 15 years, I guess, and I'm occasionally thinking of moving to something else like DuckDuckGo, but I also feel like since most people use Google, it's the best trained one and also I sort of want to see what most people would see.
What I would really like as an improvement is to get results in the language in which I'm writing. It's truly annoying to me, as a Ukrainian, that when I google things in Ukrainian, the top results are very often in Russian, from Russian websites. I'm fluent in Russian as well, but that's not the language I've used to google things, so that means I expect to get information that's local and in my own language, but Google just keeps pushing content in Russian.
Sometimes I even google in English but get results in Russian, even though Russian isn't even selected in my settings as a language in which results should be shown.

I imagine the importance of getting a degree varies from country to country. In my country, I'd say it's important to go at least through a Bachelor's program because many intellectual (non-manual) jobs will require higher education, although it often won't matter where you studied or even what you studied, unless it's a job that's very narrow and specific to a certain degree. Getting more degrees doesn't help, but sometimes getting further in one degree (doing Master's, sometimes even PhD) can be required for more senior positions.
Ultimately, I think people should study what's of interest to them and how much it's of interest to them, and then try to find jobs that are at least remotely engaging with whatever the person studied.

Since the creation of Bitcoin, there hasn't technically been a global economic crisis, so it's still unknown how it would perform. It did bounce back pretty fast after the pandemic announcement and the initial major drop, and it's sometimes actively used in countries suffering from particularly high inflation, but that's not enough. The main points about the features of Bitcoin and how they can be useful are true, but how people actually behave in an economic crisis can be very different, as people aren't actually always rational beings who assess all the pros and cons before making decisions that best serve their interests.

Even though the post is short, there are plenty of dubious statements and ways of phrasing things here. The USA isn't against Bitcoin, but the SEC refuses to regulate it, the Congress is considering mining restrictions due to environmental concerns, and Bitcoin is taxed heavily. Then you say European countries, but include Mexico and Japan in the list. Oh, and the UK, while generally supportive of Bitcoin, also has some restrictions, such as shutting down Bitcoin ATMs.
Bitcoin is a good currency, but whether it's the best is a matter of opinion and what we put into the word "best".

1. Canelo
2. Round 12
3. 2

Game 1:  27, 18'
Game 2:  27, 23'
Game 3:  27, 31'

Op's poll is presenting us with a false dilemma, and of course not many people on this forum would choose to say that Bitcoin is bad. Bitcoin doesn't have to be bad or the best, as there's a lot of space in the middle. It's a nice currency, it's a very empowering one, but there are also issues with using it, such as the scalability and occasionally skyrocketing fees, or simply the fact that there aren't many places where one can pay directly in Bitcoin.
Also, while you can lose a lot with gambling, you can also lose a lot with Bitcoin as a result of a scam, panic selling at the wrong moment, losing access to your wallet, etc.

Bitcoin can easily reach $50k in 2024, and of course you might be right, and it might be 2026. Does it matter, though? Investing in Bitcoin is done best with a long-term prospect in mind. $50k isn't a huge change from the current price, anyway, so perhaps waiting for a bigger improvement makes more sense. But the price is pretty good right now, and I don't see why not invest now, even if Bitcoin goes into the bull phase only in 2026. It's a personal choice, no problem there. I guess I'm just wondering about what might be stopping a person.

I agree that crypto exchanges must invest in better security, but there are also a couple of other things to note here. First, people must learn to only store what they're totally fine with losing on exchanges because a centralized platform is a risk not just due to possible hacks but also exit scams, mismanagement of customers' funds, etc. Second, crypto exchanges sometimes claim there was a hack, when in all likeliness it was an inside job that led to funds being stolen from customers.
I also stand with those who aren't sure KYC is that useful, especially in the context of security.