The 10-minute block time and 21-million Bitcoin both imply a store-of-value, due to slow updates and limited Bitcoin.
The Genesis block tells us Satoshi's intention: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” The bailouts were due to large banks and mortgages failing. These would be large accounts, ones where value would be stored, and the statement of "bailout"'s says that Satoshi was annoyed by a loss-of-value.
"The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust."
"Coins have to get initially distributed somehow, and a constant rate seems like the best formula."
"Bitcoin [is] more like a collectible or commodity."
"As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases."
" if you get larger amounts then you can upgrade to the actual bitcoin software."
"Maybe it could get an initial value circularly as you’ve suggested, by people foreseeing its potential usefulness for exchange... Maybe collectors, any random reason could spark it."
"Escape the arbitrary inflation risk of centrally managed currencies! Bitcoin’s total circulation is limited to 21 million coins."
(lifted from
http://sampatt.com/blog/2019/06/06/breakdown-of-all-satoshi-writings-proves-bitcoin-not-built-primarily-as-store-of-value#evidence-for-store-of-value)
At the moment, Bitcoin is not a store-of-value. It's not stable enough for that. It is likely an increase-of-value after several years, but not always within a short yearly period.
If you wanted to force people to transact, you would go for a different model. Inflation encourages spending, so to encourage transactions it would be better to have a schedule that starts with block halvings to encourage uptake, but after a few decades change to block doublings.
By lately some people have been claiming that "Bitcoin's power consumption is a central point of failure - someone can just switch off the electricity and all miners stop". And in particular "Bitcoin will not survive the coming winter". Both of these are wrong.
Bitcoin's value is determined on the difficulty of obtaining new Bitcoin. While that may be CPU/hash power, difficulty can also come in the form of legal restrictions. More legal restrictions increases difficulty, which would increase the cost of creating new Bitcoin, and push the price upwards. You may find that if Bitcoin becomes banned in some countries that miners will still continue in those countries because they find Bitcoin worth it. Hash rate is partially irrelevant since that automatically adjusts -- it's the "difficulty" that matters, and "difficulty" includes hash rate, technological progress, power generation and consumption -- but social reasons can also increase "difficulty".