Re: Bitcoin regaining dominance.

I don't think you can say that

I mean this is not "real life commerce" by any metric, though it may certainly make you think so since it looks like you really paid with bitcoins for the goods you bought. If anything, it is just a hidden form of speculation. And yes, it does add more fuel to speculation and demand simply because it is speculation in its own right. Further, while I could somewhat agree to your claim that vendors using or not using BitPay as a middleman might not affect prices (though this is debatable but I won't digress), this doesn't add to real adoption anything if that was your point

I should've worded it a bit differently, as directly accepting Bitcoin would surely accelerate adoption. But just being able to quickly liquidate your assets by "directly" being able to purchase real goods with your assets (even through a middleman) is something that was and is not possible with traditional assets.
Thus a wide spread acceptance of cryptos (even through a middleman) would offer a completely new merit to cryptos as a form of asset that stocks, ETFs, bonds, etc. do not have, since you first have to sell them to be able to use the money for anything. And that can take several days to weeks in some cases.

I don't quite get your point

Indeed, you can't buy goods "directly" with stocks, ETFs, bonds, whatever, but what does it change? If we are not talking about some trash or toxic assets here (think of shitcoins as a sort of cryptoanalogy here), you can liquidate your assets pretty close to instant. It is surely not like it would take "several days to weeks in some cases" if we talk about, for example, major stocks or US Treasuries. I agree that this is something new in this "direct liquidation" (if I can call it so), but honestly, I don't see how it would contribute to Bitcoin popularity to any noticeable degree

I don't know what things are like in the US. But in Europe you have to close your position and then wait until it's accredited to your bank account to be able to use it. You can't always spend money directly out of your brokerage account, which is why people keep money in their bank account in the first place for "emergencies"

Okay, now I see what you mean

But the problem you raise has more to do with Bitcoin transfers versus fiat transfers rather than being able to spend your coins "directly" when you you can spend fiat money without any reservations (read directly in a true sense of the word). In other words, I don't see any particular difference between spending bitcoins when buying goods and spending fiat when buying the same goods. In fact, with Bitcoin you risk your transaction being denied for whatever reason (e.g. a sudden drop in exchange rate). Obviously, there are no such issues with fiat. In short, you make incorrect comparisons since you should compare Bitcoin with fiat, not with stocks or whatever

Bitcoin right now is more of a speculative investment than a currency though, at least until sufficient adoption to dampen the volatility takes place. Which is why I've compared it to other assets, rather than fiat currency. But yes, you are right with the risks of using it as a currency with no intermediary, although the risk is in Bitpay in current situations. How do they deal with this by the way? Are they just speculating that prices will increase?