How the majority of the users used it doesn't matter in this context. What matters is "what gives Bitcoin its value". If nobody at all uses Bitcoin as a currency again, that doesn't take away the currency feature of Bitcoin. It is not a currency because people use it; it is a currency because it was built that way.
But in your first reply you said: "It is the fact that it is a superior currency that allows it to be an asset."
If nobody uses it as currency — where does the value come from? You can't have it both ways: either currency features give it value (then usage matters), or they don't (then what does?).
A car built as a vehicle doesn't retain value if nobody drives it. Design intent doesn't create value — usage does.
Once upon a time, there were people who believed that altcoins would make Bitcoin vulnerable because they were faster in transactions, had lower fees and all, but here we are today, none have come close.
Altcoins were crypto competing with crypto. Tokenization is traditional finance absorbing blockchain. Different game.
Altcoins had no institutional backing, no regulatory framework, no connection to real economy. BlackRock's BUIDL has all three.
OpenAI has a market value of about $500B, do you think everybody who holds their shares believes in the project or company? NO. A lot of them, too, just want to make a profit.
OpenAI shares represent ownership in a company with revenue, IP, and cash flow. Even if you don't "believe" — you own something real.
Bitcoin shares (via ETF) represent... Bitcoin. Which represents... the expectation that someone will pay more later.
That's the difference. OpenAI speculators are betting on a company. Bitcoin speculators are betting on other speculators.
Most of the demand has always come from speculators, and this is not a bad thing. People buy bitcoin, because they speculate that, since it's the hardest money, its purchasing power is likely to continue going up. Just as most people buy gold, not to wear it or to put it in electronics, but to protect themselves from the inflation caused by the central banks.
Gold has 5,000 years of history as store of value, physical scarcity you can touch, and industrial demand as a floor. Bitcoin has 15 years and a narrative.
I'm not saying narrative is worthless — clearly it's worth $1T+. But narratives can shift. Gold's hasn't shifted in millennia. Bitcoin's shifts every cycle (digital gold → inflation hedge → risk-on asset → store of value again).
Bitcoin is money. Money does not have any utility other than to be exchanged through space and time. Bitcoin is just the best money at traveling through space and time, and the market realizes it.
"Best money for traveling through time" implies stability. Bitcoin dropped 80%+ three times in the last decade. That's not traveling through time — that's a rollercoaster.
For actual time-travel (retirement, inheritance), people want predictability. That's why pension funds buy bonds, not Bitcoin. And now tokenized bonds exist on the same rails.
You still haven't answered my core question: if speculators drive Bitcoin's value, what happens when a better speculative vehicle appears? One with yield, regulatory clarity, and the same 24/7 blockchain access?
China already has proven it with its own hand, completely banning exchange and mining, all hash rate fled the country within a few week the price dropped a little but after 18 month it set a new ATH.
China banned it, price recovered — true. But China didn't have a viable alternative to offer.
What happens when the "ban" isn't a prohibition, but a better product? If BlackRock offers tokenized S&P500 with 10% yield on the same blockchain rails — that's not a ban, that's competition.
Bitcoin survived government attacks. The question is whether it survives being ignored by the mainstream while something shinier takes the spotlight.
