Maybe you're from Nigeria or a similar country where Bitcoin is sort of restricted, but it seems that people are actively using it just fine, which leads me to assuming that using it isn't really prosecuted even if it is technically illegal. If your country has strict and enforced anti-crypto legislation, then I'd be surprised if Bitcoin still were popular. In many countries, luckily, Bitcoin isn't banned, and it's either legal or in the gray area, which is basically safe in most cases. So I'd attribute Bitcoin's fame to being a great-performing asset (if you zoom out), being a revolutionary kind of money (the one no authority issues or controls, the one with fixed total supply and without monetary policies set by anyone, and the one you can send internationally without getting banks or anyone else involved), and partly to it not being severely restricted by the authorities of various countries, actually.

Russia is known to focus on gold purchases because they're trying to basically temporarily return to the gold standard since the start of the full-scale war, and I must say this strategy worked pretty well, helping to stabilize ruble after it fell a lot from the sanctions and general panic. Relying on one fiat as a safeguard for another fiat is riskier than relying on something that's been historically more stable and is at least different from fiat. That being said, I think that dollar will remain the main global reserve, at least when it comes to a top fiat currency which is a global reserve. The rise of gold is IMO a temporary thing, especially since it has its own issues. People didn't move away from the gold standard without reason, after all. And gold caused issues historically if suddently too much of it appeared somewhere.

It's honest to admit a mistake and stop making predictions about Bitcoin like that person the op mentions closing the platform because Bitcoin doesn't keep falling in 2023. However, I feel like many people get away with their wrong predictions, keep making ones and preserve their audiences. That is, of course, if Bitcoin predictions weren't the only thing that they were famous for, but I don't know people who are (there probably exist, I just don't see them because I don't care about them). So responsibility of influencers isn't always a thing, and unfortunately people don't always shut up after making one big mistake.

Game 1:  37, 29'
Game 2:  37, 17'
Game 3:  37, 46'

I don't think the op did anything wrong since the shopkeeper expressed interest and the op mentioned the high risk of investing. What I think would also be nice to mention is that it's not smart to trust exchanges with your money and that the investment is safer in a personal wallet like Electrum. Moreover, it's important for people new to Bitcoin to understand that transactions aren't reversible, and if they send money to a wrong address, it's gone, as well as that if a person loses the passphrase from a wallet, nobody can do anything to help. So it requires a certain level of responsibility, but also gives the kind of financial freedom people never had before.

If (when) Bitcoin becomes legal tender in my country, I will designate a wallet for daily expenses which won't have much in it but will be convenient to use on a phone, and I'll go to a grocery store to buy my basic set of food for a couple of days with this money. To me, that would be a ritual to feel the difference. I don't see it in a business-oriented way like the op does. I would just be happy that we're at that point, even if it's not global but gets more widespread than it currently is. I don't believe that Bitcoin will be as widespread as the Internet, though. Especially if we consider how much time people spend online and time they can spend with Bitcoin. However, I do think we'll see more countries allowing it as a form of payment.

As others have mentioned, there are already many units in use, so there doesn't seem to be a need for another one. Also, IMO, the more we have, the trickier it gets in conversations with people and online. I focus on BTC and am comfortable with numbers like 0.02, 0.005, 0.0003. I just count the zeros after the dot and before the number. I'm also okay with mBTC, more or less. But when someone says an amount in thousands or tens of thousands of Satoshis, I don't have an immediate idea how much that is. And that's talking about the most famous units, while there are others as well.

My country isn't doing well economically, but it's completely understandable because we are literally at war right now (Ukrainian here). The prices for many staples are simply twice as high as a year ago, so yeah, a huge difference. For some products it's a 30-50% rise, and I think only things which used to already cost lots of money in some ways cost the same they used to. I think it's also important to not just look at the prices, but at the salaries as well, because that's what really matters. Average salary in the capital for a full-time job is $500, the minimum wage is $183.
A big advantage is that, as a highly agricultural country, we generally have very cheap veggies and some fruit. It's not the case with everything, but you can buy potatoes for $0.30/kg, carrots for $0.60/kg, onions for $1/kg. We also have very really cheap oyster (cluster) mushrooms, like $4/kg. But then a can (400g) of chopped tomatoes is almost $2, fresh peppers are $3.5-$5/kg, tomatoes are $2.20+/kg. Overall, it's not great, but not equally bad either, so you can get by without spending too much if you pay attention to prices and are willing to experiment with new ingredients.

Abandoning local fiat for Bitcoin is very risky (because of extreme volatility and how that will affect the instability of consumer prices), something most won't do because of that. It makes sense only when your currency is really collapsing or you don't have your own fiat currency and instead depend on someone else's. Also, I'd say you need a very poor economy to be willing to risk as much. But Bitcoin can coexist with fiat and be partially recognized or adopted for certain purposes even by the governments, as Hispo mentioned already.

I think that any events that showcase Bitcoin help to promote its adoption. The Miss Universe pageant has a huge audience, so it's a great promo. What's also special in this situation is that it's not some centralized crypto service that is Bitcoin promoted (as is often the case with 'Bitcoin' ads), but Bitcoin itself. The more events like that feature Bitcoin in some ways, the better. To me, it doesn't really matter whether people do it to become popular or to sincerely promote Bitcoin because they do promote Bitcoin in the end.

Learning is good in general (although it won't necessarily make things great), and I think a person shouldn't feel bad if a lesson was learned. It's totally fine to be wrong about some things and realize it later. It's worse to never recognize one's mistakes and have to progress. Moreover, I don't think people should invest in something they don't believe in, so I'd say not buying Bitcoin when you think it can be a scam is reasonable.
Bitcoin is still in pretty early days of adoption, still probably has a lot of potential to go up and to become more widely used.

15. Jamahal Hill
14. Deiveson Figueiredo
13. Gilbert Burns
12. Jessica Andrade
11. Paul Craig
10. Ihor Potieria
9. Gregory Rodrigues
8. Thiago Moisés
7. Jailton Almeida
6. Gabriel Bonfim
5. Cody Stamann
4. Terrance McKinney
3. Warlley Alves
2. Josiane Nunes
1. Saimon Oliveira

Match 15 winner Total Strikes: 89 

EUR 19,000
kryptonomous

I haven't seen this website before, thanks for sharing this! It's really cool that there's a map, but also links to news articles that show the evidence based on which a country has a certain colour on the map. I checked a couple of countries, and all seems to be accurate to me. What I want to add, though, that experimenting or intending to experiment with a CBDC doesn't mean going against Bitcoin. For example, Ukraine does plan to work on a fiat CBDC in the future, but it's also already quite crypto-friendly and is planning to set up pro-crypto regulations along with potentially launching a CBDC (for more on the topic, see this thread). These aren't seen as competitors, they don't have to be.

I wouldn't say Bitcoin has a trend over something, but I guess one could say that Bitcoin sets the trend for the whole market of top altcoins. So when it goes up, they usually to the same, and when it goes down, they go down as well. Of course, it's not always the case, especially not immediately, but having such a huge share of the market capitalization does mean having a major impact.
Now might not be the best time to buy, but it's still a very good time, as bitcoin is more than 3x below the ATH point and who knows, maybe the bear market is near its end after all.

1.  Eubank Jr
2.  11
3.  1

Huh, I didn't know about that, and it's a fine date for celebrating birthdays. It's been a long enough time to look for some achievements, right?
I remember a time when Bitcoin transactions were very expensive during several periods, so the Lightning Network was a very worthy, even if not user-friendly, consideration. But what about now, when Bitcoin transactions aren't always cheap but are usually not high enough to make a fuss out of it? Did the Lightning Network reach enough people, and is it still relevant, especially considering the trade-off of it being off-chain transactions?
Is it possible to understand how many people use it? I see estimates that vary really wildly, from 100,000 to 80 million people, but all comes from websites I don't know and don't really trust. How big of a thing is it, and is it used primarily for Bitcoin nowadays?

Game 1:  31, 43'
Game 2:  31, 17'
Game 3:  31, 24'
Game 4:  31, 36'

China is one of the two (along with the USA) world's biggest economies, so of course it has a major impact on economic processes, including Bitcoin. It also had major power when Bitcoin mining was concentrated there, but since the mining ban, I'd say China's impact reduced to pretty much negligible because they've already done all the damage they could do to the market.
Also, I think some points on the op's list overestimate China's impact. For example, I remember considerations of South Korea banning crypto exchanges as a major trigger of the 2018 bear market. And in 2019, Bitcoin was already well into the bear market, so China just added a bit more fuel to the fire.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. No
7. 1
8. 2
9. 1
10. 3
11. Kansas City Chiefs

Tiebreaker: 191 point