I think that is exactly what is good about it. If it takes so long, it will get spread out a lot. The seigniorage will be everywhere and nowhere.
Bitcoin is not going to become a main currency (if ever) before several decades in any case, so just as well take that time to distribute it. Bitcoin is a century-long project. As fiat money has been.
Man, it's a cult for some grandeur-dilousional lunatics and can't hold water. It's already hopelessly antiquated.
All i hear from the Bitcoin hardcore supporters is contradictions by now. It was delusional madness before (still is) and now it has become contradictions. So i think it's safe to say this crowd has lost its credibility together with the coin they support.
People want to make payments and store value now, not next century. Bitcoin is a joke.
your view: Bitcoin will go down to double digits and people will still be interested. It is one of the most volatile things on earth and can't hold value but somehow in a century it magically is still the leading crypto
I should have said: "cryptocurrencies" are a century-long project, and the bitcoin inflation curve is well-adapted to that. But in the end, there may be other cryptocurrencies taking a larger (or all) of the market share.
My belief is that cryptocurrencies/bitcoin will become true money if there is generalized merchant adoption, and that that is the true fundamental of bitcoin. In other words, when bitcoin (or another cryptocurrency) is generally used to "pay for stuff". Also when people will generally accept to be paid (salary etc...) into bitcoin/cryptocurrency. The absolute price of bitcoin for that application doesn't really matter. It would be the ease of going anywhere in the world, and be able to pay mostly anonymously, mostly anything. Whether in an Eastern basaar, in a South-American shop, or in China or Japan. Whether in Europe or in Africa. Whether in the USA or anywhere else. For big or small amounts. No questions, no permissions, no bank agreements, small fees. For world travelers.
Only after that, it really may become a long-term store of value, once it has a serious use as a currency.
Now, contrary to any technological evolution which can go very fast, people in general are very conservative concerning everything which touches their money. Credit cards and stuff like that didn't change the fact that people were holding money on bank accounts.
The last time people really changed their money conceptually, was when they changed from metal to non-backed paper. It took more than a century, with metal-backing, before that transition was generally accepted. Changing from fiat to bitcoin/crypto is similar (but opposite) to the transition from gold/silver to non-backed paper. I say, opposite, because the transition from gold/silver to paper was a transition from liberal-worldwide to state-based, and bitcoin/crypto would be a transition from state-based to liberal-worldwide.
my view: next century we will have 5 to 20 wildly advanced cryptocurrencies which get more and more staying power as they progress through the technical evolutionary stages and which will directly cater to the needs of their userbase. So the future is in altcoin developement and there will be a new golddigger era in the upcoming years as old bitcoin is dethroned and real competition between technologically advanced coins for userbase sets in.
This is very well possible. However, bitcoin has the historical advantage and the "long blockchain-and-a-high-difficulty" advantage. As confidence will build up very slowly in these matters, the longest history is often important.
That's a bit like gold/silver over other metals. It is very well possible that other metals are more interesting, technically speaking. Maybe iridium would be better. But gold has the historical advantage, and no other technically improved metal has taken over from gold.
New cryptocurrencies will always be compared to bitcoin. If bitcoin is volatile for more than 10 years, nobody will believe that a NEW coin will be less volatile for instance.
Merchant adoption will probably always include bitcoin if any other coin is also having success.
I mean, if bitcoin fails, I can hardly imagine any other coin obtaining more confidence. What is possible is that bitcoin will grow slower than another coin, and that a few decades from now, another coin slowly has gained more confidence and competes bitcoin out of the market. But if bitcoin fails before general adoption, I cannot imagine another coin "starting all over and winning more confidence".
