Bitcoin vs gold economics explained below. The main takeaway point of the post is that bitcon value is not even based on scarcity, but on cost of production, which is the exact opposite of what most people think:
You're acting like bitcoin has a finite supply. In theory it does, but not in practice since transaction fees are recycled and mining continues FOREVER. It's the equivalent of if platinum costs $1000 an ounce to mine at some point but people are recycling old cars and getting it for $100 an ounce. The lowest available price is the only one that matters. It doesn't matter if the cost of production was $1 million for a coin at some point. It's an open entropy system so if the cost of production goes to zero, people simply plug into the system and mine those recycled coins for free rather than paying you $1 million.
If there are no recycled fees to mine, it means the system was already dead in the first place. The act of making fees recycle is the equivalent of infinite supply, just with the store of value aspect of that supply resting on cost of production instead of scarcity. Each halving doubles cost of production, which enables you to increase price or lower mining input. If you run out of halvings and then lower cost of production, you should have a corresponding effect to devalue other already existing coins. Do you see now why cost of production actually does matter?
And another comparing metals vs bitcoin economics:
Secondly, bitcoin having a potentially wildly floating cost of production is one of it's greatest weaknesses and one reason it's not a store of value. A wildly volatile to the downside cost of production is a black swan event in itself and would render confidence in that asset to nothingness. If we lived in an open ecosystem, which anyone who claims we will be mining asteroids for metals does, then the cost of production and it's ability to not plummet is the main factor that makes gold a store of value at all. If you live in a closed ecosystem it's not that big of a factor since you're bound by supply.
As for bitcoin, the fact that mining NEVER ENDS is exactly the equivalent of using gold as money while being in an open ecosystem. If cost of production craters, you're screwed. This can happen in bitcoin easily.
The act of previous holders just hoarding their money and refusing to sell low doesn't help because the network is officially dead in the first place if there's no mining fees to siphon off at this new lower cost of production, so the fresh lower cost of production coins drag everything else down with it.