I'm going to assume it's a financial hypothetical because I don't think I believe it's a real story. I watched a video about teen millionaires just yesterday, and they seemed to be intelligent, nice people. Then again, those were people who built their own businesses, and this story is about inheritance, which should be taken into account.
I think that a good idea is to buy a nice flat to start living independently. A part of money should be put on a deposit account at a reputable bank to earn interest rate (which actually makes sense when the amount of money is big). I believe that it's also good to invest in good education, good in a sense that it'll give some soft skills and maybe hard skills that are in something the person's actually interested in. Finally, giving back to the community is a good idea. It's both good for other people, and for the giver because research proves that people actually feel happy when they help others. It can be done via donating a part of money to a cause, or establishing a socially responsible project, a charity, a scholarship fund etc.

I don't understand why the op's talking about BRICS being established, using future tense. BRIC was created in 2009 in Russia, and then became BRICS the following year when South Africa joined the organization. It's a big alliance if we look at the percentage of population and global GDP of it, but I don't think it's an effective alliance, mainly because of different political goals and different relations each of the members have with the rest of the world (especially with Western countries).
As we can see, dedollarization isn't actually happening, so if that's their common goal, they're failing.

I don't have any specific regrets, but I admit that I've made some mistakes. One was keeping some Ethereum in a custodial wallet that was very popular at that time but performed an exit scam (or was actually hacked, hard to say). I got my 40% reimbursement in the early days after the incident and still made decent profit out of it (because I bought that Ethereum for under $20), but it was an unfortunate situation. Another was with Bitcoin, and I had around $900 worth of BTC in 2017 when the price was over $15k. But the fees were very high (around $20), so I didn't sell at that point. I eventually sold it all (because I needed to) at a loss, for around half the price during the bear market.
What's important is to learn from mistakes, instead of focusing on regret.

Financial institutions and meme coin advocates taking over is just an opinion, and it's not even supported by any evidence by the op, which is unfortunate. Which financial institutions are we talking about? Is it about the ETFs? They exist now, but that doesn't exclude Bitcoin in its pure decentralized form. As for meme coins, I've honestly not heard people defending them or talking seriously about them for a while.
Bitcoin is still digital cash, or at least it's still a part of what Bitcoin is. Sure, sometimes it's a more viable option and sometimes less, but overall, it still works as intended.

Some fiat currencies are struggling, and some are basically failed projects. However, there are a handful of currencies that are doing okay, with inflation at reasonable level and good reputation as reliable currencies. So I think it's premature to consider fiat currencies obsolete while nearly the whole global economy still relies on them.
Bitcoin is volatile, and Bitcoin transaction fees are volatile as well. Unless you go with a centralized solution, you can't just use sats to counteract Bitcoin's issues. After all, sats are parts of Bitcoin, and if an average transaction fee at some point is $10, it's $10 in both BTC and in sats.

1. Haney
2. 1
3. Round 12

I think signs like this are best places at museums. I tried to google crypto museums and Bitcoin museums and couldn't unfortunately find any that are offline, so maybe it's something for the future. But there are museums of money, and it's about time for them to have something Bitcoin-related because Bitcoin is a part of the history of money.
The sign doesn't have bids yet, but the auction hasn't started. I wonder how much it'll cost the winner.

Thankfully, banks are very chill in my country (about pretty much everything up to a certain financial threshold), and dealing with cryptos is very common, so such things aren't common in my country. Moreover, people often use platforms where you just make a transaction after placing an order, but don't keep your money on the platform. The platforms are still centralized, but they have a lot of reviews and since you're only risking the money for one transaction, they are convenient.
Trusting individuals is sometimes more difficult than trusting a website that specializes in a certain activity and has a lot of positive reviews, so I'm not sure that it the future.

Actually, not all altcoins follow the price movements of Bitcoin. There are plenty at any moment that have their own things going on. Those are often coins that have a relatively low market capitalization and are being pumped or dumped. If you want to look at them, you can sort coins on a website like Coingecko by price change over 24 hours and over 7 days.
As for altcoins being a distraction, I'm not so sure. On the one hand, I think that the vast majority of altcoins are just rubbish. On the other hand, I guess thinking about Bitcoin and altcoins in that context is a zero-sum mindset (one's loss is another one's gain and vice versa), whereas I'm more supportive of a positive-sum mindset (we can all have gains). I honestly don't think that Bitcoin would've been doing better if there were no altcoins.

When the news about Hong Kong broke, I figured people might start speculating about adoption of cryptos in China. I don't think it's going to happen, as Hong Kong is a special administrative region, so there are special policies that apply only to this region. China is the second-largest economy in the world and the first-largest (or the second-largest, by some estimates) country by population. If China warmed up to Bitcoin, it would have a major impact because of these two factors. But I don't think that will actually happen because China is all about control, and Bitcoin is about freedom.

A fair and decentralized payment option is called Bitcoin, and it's widely available. It's not under any nation's control, the price is just based on the free market, and one can obtain a small part of it, so it's accessible. It's not perfect, but it works, and there are some places around the world where you can use it as payment. And yes, you can keep BTC in self-custody, unlike digital fiat.
But a decentralized fiat currency is a weird idea, I agree with hatshepsut93 on that (and about the USD, too).

Bitcoin isn't susceptible to hyperinflation, but I'd make two notes here. First, being safe from hyperinflation as a currency is very different from ending hyperinflation. Second, Bitcoin can still lose a lot of value, so in effect be similar to a fiat suffering from hyperinflation (at least, temporarily).
In the case of WWIII, I think a lot depends on how things actually go. If it's a war the USA manages to largely avoid, the USD can become even more trusted and valuable (at least, against other fiat currencies). Gold and other non-renewable resources can experience growth in value. If the Internet remains largely available, Bitcoin can rise as well. But if it becomes a kind of war that basically destroys the current global human civilization, none of those things will matter and something different will become a de facto currency (plus barter is likely to be very common).

Transaction fees increase when there are more transactions happening and the network is getting congested. They don't correlate with the prices, neither positively nor negatively. So, it's not the case that the fees get higher when the price of Bitcoin gets higher, and it's also not the case that the fees get higher when the price of Bitcoin gets lower. Sometimes people sell a lot, and this means an increase in transactions, leading to higher fees. Sometimes people buy a lot, and the same thing happens. And sometimes it's just other factors (like with Ordinals).

Well, people are often greedy, and when the prices drop, they just want to wait for them to drop even further. If it doesn't happen, it's a missed opportunity. If it happens, people often lose faith in Bitcoin because now the price is apparently too low, and it might not recover.
I agree that it's one of the reasons why DCA is a good strategy. With DCA, people don't have to think about the prices, and they simply invest a certain amount on a regular basis, which is a way to avoid weaknesses like greed.

Approval in Hong Kong doesn't mean future countrywide approval in China (because Hong Kong is a special administrative region), but it's still good news. It just shows that Bitcoin is becoming more reputable as an investment, and perhaps we'll see some other places follow suit.

I think that what happens in Hong Kong, stays in Hong Kong and doesn't impact mainland China. In most of China, the country's keeping its citizens on a short leash, with a lot of restrictions and surveillance. That, I agree, is incompatible with Bitcoin. But Hong Kong is a different story altogether, a region that has historically been separate and enjoyed a lot more freedom even while being a part of China. It gives an illusion of choice, as if Chinese citizens have some options, while generally keeping things centralized.

This decade we're clearly seeing the return of wars, and deaths from wars being on the rise. Big-scale wars like Russia's war against Ukraine do cost a lot of money. For example, it's estimated that Russia's spending about $1 billion per day of its war against Ukraine. Ukraine can't spend as much, of course, but perhaps can spend around a third of that, plus there's some financial and military support by other countries.
But this is still nothing like World War III. I think the amount would be in dozens of trillions of dollars for that one.

I think it's normal and natural to want some quick gains, but it's not necessary to get them from financial things. If you have something dirty in your flat, and you know you can put some effort to make it much cleaner, you can go for it and feel better, seeing the fast result. Other things like that can be games, watching something you enjoy, eating something you love, etc. If you get your fast gains from non-financial areas in life, that might help to invest time and effort into things that are actually important for long-term success.

If we're talking about dependants meaning children, they need to be taken care of until they fully grow up, and if one can afford it, it's good to provide good education to children and try to help them roughly figure out their career paths. But dependants can also be people who are already too old to work or incapable due to other reasons, in which cases it might be impossible to help them become financially independent.
Having the mindset of helping others is great, but I also think it should extend beyond dependants and cover pretty much any people you can help a bit with job opportunities when they need those opportunities.

Not everything must be in the whitepaper. Halving exists, it's a fact, and it's meant to be this way. Also, I think halving is a great mechanism that helps make Bitcoin even more desirable because fewer and fewer coins appear as the time passes. Not to mention that cycles are just nice and natural to us humans, they help keep track of the flow of time and how things are going.
Everyone knows (or can learn if they want to) about halving, so there's nothing hidden, dirty or shady about it.

The prices experienced a dip, with Bitcoin being 4.4% down over 24 hours. It's significant enough to notice, but not significant enough to worry about. In fact, it seems like Bitcoin is already recovering from it. As for Iran and Israel, that was a major escalation, but sometimes escalations aren't followed by anything major. The end of Iran, end of Israel and end of cryptos all sound like very dramatic options to me, to be honest.
DaveF also has a good point that the price decrease might not even be due to Iran and Israel.
Whether it becomes a major war or not, I think Bitcoin will recover and can prosper regardless of it.