I was researching and reading a certain Whitepaper from a good token project and this statement really struck my thinking:
"With no government or “anchor” backing up cryptocurrencies, the only foundation that cryptocurrencies have is people’s faith in their value. In other words, solely the market mechanism determines the price of cryptocurrencies. At my time of writing, that faith is worth is over $2000 per Bitcoin and this doesn’t spur from the Bitcoin’s intrinsic value, but from what it allow users to do."
In this case, what will happen when that same trust from Bitcoin holders can be diminished or for heaven's sake be gone...would that be the end of Bitcoin?
This also lead me to the question: is Bitcoin really a store of value or more of a medium where our trust is plastered on?
Bitcoin is not and cannot be a store of value
It is a speculative asset and highly if not to say extremely speculative at that. Such assets simply cannot be a store of value by definition. Regarding faith, it is equally applicable to fiat currencies as well. It doesn't really matter if there is a government behind a currency or just an algo limiting its issuance, it still inevitably and ultimately comes down to faith. Zimbabwean dollar had the government "backing it up", and how much did that help it? If the majority of people lose their faith in some currency, it is basically doomed, and the US dollar is no different in this regard