It has intrinsic value but part of that value is that it has the potential to replace currencies. They actually call it a cryptocurrency...so maybe it should be used as one.
The trend has not been toward more uses in spending but less. I have to agree with Mark Cuban on this one...if you can't use it other than just speculating on it, then what's the point? Just speculate on any number of other things with limited amounts.
My hope has always been that it will replace the dollar. Without the dollar, the US cannot print money out of nowhere to fund its endless wars.
I do agree in that part of the intrinsic value is it being a means of payment. I have indeed used it sometimes (few to be honest) for payment. Graham's money rule applies strongly here though. Why use "good" (BTC) money instead of "bad" (FIAT) money for spending? That is a consequence of having other qualities such as (a huge) potential of appreciation. When that vanishes maybe you will see more usage as a currency.
I think that you meant to refer to Gresham's law...
Any, I understand the point that you are making, and you even seem to be suggesting that you don't really buy the theory (or possibility) that bitcoin is designed to pump forever, which would kind of imply that we don't ever quite get to the status of anyone really wanting to spend their bitcoin because there are always going to be inferior monies out there to spend. Of course, if you only have bitcoin, you are going to spend it, but if you have any other monies, you will spend that (those) first.
I will personally concede that even if you are a fuck all young person in his/her sub-teens currently reading this thread, you might not even live long enough to see the day in which bitcoin is the only currency.. just assuming for the sake of argument that there might be some current thread readers that will still be alive in the year 2120 (about 20 years before the mining rewards are scheduled to end).
But... replacing the dollar? Replacing the US (or any other state) "printing"? I donno. I mean... one of the most important ways of control states do need and use is "printing of money" to balance economy. I know it is a libertarian thing to think that if Bitcoin would succeed it would go and replace FIAT and stop the "printing press". I don't think so. They would find a way to control the economy no matter what. Otherwise they would never let BTC (or any equivalent decentralised cryptocurrency) succeed in replacing FIAT.
Never say never.
There are lot's of things that we have difficulties to anticipate. I recall that around the time that I got into bitcoin, in late 2013, I had been involved in some of those kinds of libertarian debates at that time that continuously suggest that the USA Government is imminently ready to collapse, and some of those kinds of speculations. I personally asserted that I had difficulties speculating that the USA government and/or dollar could reasonably collapse in a time frame that is less than 30 years. We have more evidence of further desperation and lame ass irresponsibility behaviors of USA leaders that might cause some of us to speculate that they are even more irresponsible in the gradually and then suddenly direction.
Surely, in the past there were some conceptual difficulties to consider vehicles in which some other currency, whether the Euro or the Yuan or some other currency might take the place of the dollar, yet bitcoin has been designed to fit into that kind of a role...
Yeah, sure such value gravitation does not have to flow into bitcoin in any kind of sudden way, but bitcoin is exactly there to potentially serve in a kind of safety net kind of way that could even possibly lessen the chances of Armageddon or even any kind of physical/army revolutionary transition.... Yeah, there are going to be states that bomb and kill innocent people for a while, but even those kinds of problematic outcomes might not lead to any kind of Armageddon transition as being a transition condition precedent in order to allow for more and more value to gravitate into bitcoin.. which does not have or even need governments in order to operate decently well and how it is designed.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we don't need a world without government because in my personal opinion, there are a lot of ways that governments are needed in order to balance some public good type resources that would have lots of difficulties in a world without governments, but governments are likely going to be forced to figure out ways to accomplish their public works in ways that account for the various powers of king daddy.
The dollar will eventually die, yeah, but I don't see how they will allow it being replaced by anything else that they can exert some amount of control over it.
Yeah, of course, "they" are going to fight king daddy here and there... but there is only so much that can be done to actually win against king daddy. AmiNOTrite? Yeah, it could take 30, 50, 100 or more years, but I doubt that I am even going to be around, personally in 50 years, so it would be hard for me, personally, to proclaim: " I told you so."... not that I am trying to be right.. I hardly give any shits, anyhow about these more macro-issues, and I am just attempting to be descriptive rather than prescriptive... Why do I give any shits about bitcoin, except to attempt to protect my own personal strategies in regards to managing my two digits stash.