USD will go down in hyperinflation, but it might be the last one standing.
Bitcoin might be too late to come as an alternative. Depends on bitcoin usage expansion and the timeframe of USD fall.
I agree with you. A lot is riding on when exactly this complete and total collapse comes. If it comes next year bitcoin is probably screwed. If it comes decades from now, who knows what inroads cryptocurrency will have made into society. Kids these days are growing up with technology, it's not hard to imagine when they are adults could trust it just like they can trust hard assets like gold.
I don't think complete collapse is due for a while though... people are just satisfied enough that nobody is even thinking of a revolution these days. The gov't and Wall Street are playing it very smart... slowly and gradually bleed the American citizen instead of taking it all at once. You put a frog in a pan and start heating it up...
I believe collapse will happen decades from now. We have a bit of time IMO
Money has to be either:
- Something of inherent and reliable value. (gold, silver, cigarettes, bullets)
- A unit of account backed by the authority of an authority with tax raising powers.
Bitcoin is neither of those. Bitcoin is merely a vessel or potential vessel of any given unit of exchange which enough people are prepared to reliably swap for the Bitcoin. It is not about the Bitcoin, it is about what the Bitcoin can be swapped over for.
Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency in general) could fit into the first option. Like I said before it depends on the timeframe of collapse. Newer generations are more and more trusting of technology... it's not too much of a stretch to believe that 30 years from now people will be capable of considering mathematical algorithms and lines of code as "inherently valuable."