I agree that cryptos do have some negative reputation attached to them, thanks to all the scams, and that the term can be confusing. But I agree with mk4 that it's too late to change things because the term is already too popular.
What we can do is just use the word Bitcoin more. After all, most of the time that's what we're referring to anyway, and most cryptos aren't worth discussing. Those that are can also be mentioned by name when we're talking about them.

There are more regulations now than there used to be, that's true. Some countries have figured out their taxation policies and some are expecting people to pay taxes for their crypto profits. Moreover, KYC requirements on mainstream crypto exchanges became a pretty common thing, and it seems that 6 years ago, they were rare.
But things also differ from one country to another. Lots of governments are still not involved, and Bitcoin status is unclear in many countries. There are also places where you don't have to pay crypto taxes at all or up to a certain earning threshold.
I think average people will not only stay but will continue joining the market, despite the changes (and sometimes actually thanks to the changes, as some people care about ensuring that what they do is legal, so they appreciate the regulations).

I agree with this point in general, as it's truly a very reasonable average, so it's more of a matter of price of Bitcoin than of the need to divide Bitcoin beyond satoshis. However, sometimes we do have those very unfortunate periods when looking at satoshis can show that we may not have enough for everyone. Namely, we've seen the transaction fees spike recently. It's getting better now, but still, when one transaction costs you tens of thousands of sats, 262 thousand is suddenly not that much. We can hope that it won't be worth thousands of sats in the future, of course, but we do need to keep in mind that scalability remains a big issue.

I always find it hard to understand why some hackers just leak private data of regular people, people who did nothing wrong and whose private information should be nobody's business. I mean, leaking stuff about public figures or events that are of great public interest is something I can understand, but here we're talking about leaking the whole database of users of El Salvador's state wallet (which happens to be almost all the country's population).
It does show the risks of custodial wallets, though, which can be a good talking point for advocates of self-custody. I'm sorry for those whose info got leaked.

I like thought experiments, and since they aren't supposed to be highly detailed or realistic, I'll take the conditions the op proposes without criticism.
If Bitcoin became fully centralized, in the sense of only custodial wallets (and of the same company, I suppose) existing, mining being abandoned, and potentially even some supply regulations, I think tons of people would abandon it very fast and it would die. Bitcoin is a symbol of freedom, and there's no freedom in a centralized digital currency. It's important that there's an option to keep Bitcoin in a non-custodial wallet, and that there's an option of taking part in mining. Take those options away, and you're left with a product that nobody wants because we already have fast custodial transactions with fiat.

Bitcoin doesn't need AI and is independent of AI. AI can take part in discussing Bitcoin (like people using ChatGPT on this forum), in framing Bitcoin in the media (because some news outlets use AI), in the reputation of Bitcoin (via AI-powered recommendation algorithms). All that, I think, is realistic. But that's not directly related to Bitcoin and how it works.
I think AI will have a huge impact on our lives, but its interaction with Bitcoin will actually be minimal.

It's truly painful to see how much the fees rise sometimes. I agree that it's a major issue, that it's a challenge. My only solace is that I don't think the problem is getting worse or that there won't be any low fees in the future. It's not over $100 any more, but it's still over $25 for any kind of priority, according to mempool.space. For now, we can just try to wait it out and/or use the bits we have on some centralized platforms. It's great if ultimately we see some sort of patch (soft fork) that can improve the situation.

Halving is just the end of a cycle and the start of a new one. Yes, the reward is reduced by half, but it's not the first halving and there's no surprise that this is how Bitcoin works. So, as such, I think it doesn't have any direct impact on attracting or scaring off investors. But Bitcoin does get some media attention due to halving, and attention is generally good to remind potential investors that Bitcoin exists.
There's no reason for a number of new investors to decrease, as halving makes Bitcoin more scarce, which is in principle good for investments.

Game 1:  26, 22'
Game 2:  26, 27'

There are monitoring platforms that try to assess if BTC is alright or tainted, and some websites can ask for additional documentation based on the fact that some BTC was flagged somewhere as tainted. Some also have policies like not accepting Bitcoin that was mixed (using a mixer).
Such policies do raise the question of fungibility of Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin is fungible, and that we shouldn't care about the notion of tainted coins. What authorities should care about is tracking money that is currently under control of criminals, but once the money is seized and released back via auctioning or exchanges, that shouldn't matter.

Honestly, determining the end of a bull run is much easier in hindsight, when the price is low for a while. For now, we can try to zoom out and look at, say, the price over a year. In that case, Bitcoin still looks very strong, close to the top.
We can also look at how much the price is below ATH. It's currently 12% below, which isn't that much, to be honest, as the price during the bear market is normally around 50+% below ATH. So I think it's still a bull market, maybe just a temporary point of stagnation that will seem insignificant in hindsight.

Javier Milei has a pretty radical libertarian stance even for Argentina, and we're talking about a country that's been suffering from hyperinflation for decades. In cases of complete mismanagement, abandoning central banks and adopting someone else's currency or even a decentralized currency might be worth the risk. But I think that doesn't apply to most of the world, where fiat isn't always doing great, but there is some sort of stability and policies generally work. In those cases, I don't think getting rid of central banks would be a popular or appealing idea. Aside from stability and familiarity, national fiat can also be a part of national pride, and central banks are needed for that.

I don't use on-chain Bitcoin for small transactions, considering the fees. Come to think of it, when fees are above $10, I try not to use on-chain Bitcoin at all. But that doesn't mean I fully stop using it, as I do have small amounts on centralized platforms (for gambling and betting on sports). Since money's already there, small transactions are possible there without any fees, and Bitcoin can still be useful. I know it's different and that it's not a solution, but it also means not stopping using Bitcoin for small transactions completely.

I agree that there are better and worse times to invest in Bitcoin, and that there seem to be some sort of cycles here. But with its long-term growth, I also think it's not necessary to get into details and time will set things right. For example, buying at $17k at the end of 2017 can be seen as a mistake, but if a person simply waited for 3.5 years, that's almost 4x profit right there. As for gold, it's growing much slower, so I think it's a good alternative to fiat for savings because fiat loses value over time, but not a very lucrative investment opportunity.

I think I've heard about some athletes requesting bonus payments in Bitcoin before. For example, there was a case in 2019 with Russell Okung tweeting about wanting to be paid in Bitcoin and becoming the first NFL player to be paid in Bitcoin in 2020. There's also an article on Medium (with relevant sources) about athletes getting paid in Bitcoin.
So it's certainly not the first case, but any such case is a nice little advertisement for Bitcoin.

If we're looking at 5 years, then I agree that in many countries, including mine, things are getting worse. Salaries are higher in local fiat, of course, but the purchasing power is lower than it used to be, so to improve your life, you need to be in active career growth to outrun these changes.
That being said, I'm not sure if it's a global trend, because in my country it has regional causes that aren't relevant elsewhere. I tend to agree with Charles-Tim that objectively, the global economy isn't on decline.

Some of the crucial traits of social networks are allowing to communicate, share information, connect, form relationships. If we use the term social media, we're focusing on sharing information and ideas on a platform.
Bitcoin isn't built in such a way. We don't normally use Bitcoin to share texts or photos, we can't befriend people on blockchain, and we're not really communicating with Bitcoin. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but I'm saying that it's not what it's for, and it's not something easy to do.
One could argue that Bitcointalk as a forum has traits of social networking, but that's a very different matter.

I agree with the op that a very high amount of BTC in the hands of short-term holders is a positive thing for BTC price. Some might worry that it's a bad sign because if people aren't hodling long-term, they can as easily sell their BTC as they bought it and drive the price down. But, actually, short-term holding means that there's high liquidity, and that people are willing to exchange BTC. Because hodling is good for hodlers, but not good for a currency itself, as low liquidity would make the price artificial.

The scarcity of Bitcoin is actually more reliable than that of precious metals. For one, some of such metals can be available in great number in space, but it's too early to worry about that. The thing is, they might be abundant on Earth as well, as what we have are only estimates, and we haven't fully explored our planet to assert that we know the supply of gold, for example.
I agree that Bitcoin is the most reputable cryptocurrency, and that it's currently the greatest cryptocurrency. I think it will remain #1 by market capitalization for, say, another decade, but I'm not sure about forever, as we can't predict what kind of changes might happen.

Well, actually, halving countdown shows that halving is more than 24 hours away. The op's link indeed doesn't work, and Nicehash link, provided by Poker Player, says that halving is in 1 day and 23 hours. Another website says it's 1 day and 16 hours away, so the estimates vary. If it's op's first halving, it can be pretty exciting. As for me, it's my third one, I believe, so it's just the end of a cycle and a start of a new one. It won't have any direct impact on the price, nothing magical will happen around April 20. Perhaps we should actually think of making halving a Bitcoin holiday, sort of like people celebrate the New Year, but for now, that's not the case.