You're starting with the assumption that everyone would be using Bitcoin purely as a store of value. This, in my opinion, is extremely unlikely to happen on such a large scale that it woulds massively impact the number of transactions being sent with Bitcoin.
Yes, I am starting with that assumption, which I did not come up with, but was responding to.
Even if Bitcoin was mainly used as a store of value, you'd still have people using it either for short term or for long term storage.
If used for short term storage, there would still be enough transactions to pay for mining fees.
And the basis of this is what? According to this paper
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~smattw/CKWN-CCS16.pdf transaction fees are not going to be enough to support the network.
I agree with you on the problem you raise, but not on the solution. Bitcoin as a store of value is a temporary madness which cannot last forever. The reason which makes this madness "normal" is that the mainstream finance has become even more mad and even more disconnected from reality. Therefore Bitcoin is a sort of "lesser madness" compared with the fantasyland of mainstream finance. Both of them cannot last forever. It is not clear which would collapse first though. As for the solution you propose, making more Bitcoins is not necessary, since there are more an more new altcoins which cover the function of "more bitcoins", supplying more assets that can be used as a store of value.
I disagree with this because if altcoins turn out to be superior to bitcoin in terms of store of value, then people will shift out of bitcoin, not buy altcoins in addition to bitcoin.
I hear more and more by people that they consider bitcoin more of a store of value (eg, gold replacement) than as a currency, especially as the transaction fees go up. I have also heard many people say that even if bitcoin is only used as a store of value, and not as a currency, it has utility.
But this is not sustainable. Imagine bitcoin prices continue to increase and eventually all the coins are mined. There are not many transfers because people are mainly hoarding. Thus not much transaction fees, which is the only source of income for miners. Hash power reduces dramatically, and so network security deteriorates.
It seems to me that the only solution would be for bitcoins to be perpetually made available (no limit at 21 million).
If your saying increasing the supply is the solution(correct me if I am wrong, that won't be happening. First, the Bitcoin was set to only be 21M and Second, increasing the supply will mean decreasing the value of it in the market which I think all of the investors will not agree with.
You have it backwards. If it is ONLY used as a store of value, and the supply is limited to 21 million, then the value on the market will decrease, possibly going to zero. The only way that bitcoin can survive is to increase their supply. Read the above posts in this thread. What people think is going to happen if they increase the supply is irrelevant. The market wins in the end.
Of course it is always important to consider what people would think if the "VALUE" would decrease because of the increase in supply. This had been proposed long before but the public have not accepted because it will surely undermine the market value of BTC.
You mean the bitcoin public have not accepted it, not the general public. But the bitcoin community is very insulated in terms of economics and exposure to any ideas outside of crypto. It "surely" does not undermine the market value of BTC.
