It's a different game... currently most value comes from *expectations* about *future* use...
I don't really think that. Well, there are maybe people really thinking that bitcoin is going to become a world currency. In the beginning I learned about bitcoin, I was hoping that too. But let's face it, this is not going to happen. As such, to sustain a market cap of 20 billion dollars, and most probably a speed that is several spendings a year, you'd need a non-crypto PRODUCT flux bought with bitcoin of more than 100 billion dollars. That is Amazon's business size. You'd need amazon's business to pass entirely onto bitcoin in order for bitcoin to validate its CURRENT MARKET CAP. So people spending $1000 on a bitcoin are already assuming bitcoin's currency usage of the order of Amazon's business.
However, there is a problem. Bitcoin on chain will only be able to sustain 10 or 20 transactions per second if ever the 1 MB limit is lifted which I don't believe. This implies that each buying (each transaction) on bitcoin must be of the order of $100 or $200, or bitcoin can't handle it. So bitcoin couldn't even take over Amazon's business, because most stuff bought on amazon isn't $200,-. And that is AFTER being upgraded beyond segwit.
If you allow for "banking layers" on top of bitcoin, you will create extra bitcoin IOU (fractional reserve banking), diluting the bitcoin price over on chain coins, and off-chain IOU, so yes, you can have a higher amount of transacted value, but you will not increase bitcoin's value through Fisher's formula with it.
In other words, the current market estimation of the future economic value of bitcoin already makes very bold assumptions about its use.
I think bitcoin is simply in a greater-fool game, black tulip type.
On this one we really disagree.
Took me one year to understand that Bitcoin is not going to be a world currency.
Others will have that niche . If it does succeed, I see it more as a store of value like gold.
Sure, you could buy with it something at the store but most wouldn't.
Bitcoin is kinda mix of many things. Company, Commodity and Currency. As I see it atm, it leans towards commodity.
It doesn't need to take over Amazon. It has a different purpose.