You are one of the few bitcoiners that are skeptic about it going to over a million.
Just to clarify: I don't rule a $1M Bitcoin out. I think if there is a strong narrative that Bitcoin can be really a gold competitor, then this could trigger a bull market where the price more than doubles in a standard bull cycle. Imagine the gold price falling and Bitcoin rising
to new ATHs at the same time, even if it's only for a couple of months. And in 2030+ that could bring us close to the million. But at the same time, I expect most bull cycles to be weaker (i.e. less than a x2 in four years, in purchasing power) due to the general volatility reduction tendency.
Thus I believe mining rewards would be stable or slightly declining in the long term trend, which hints to a stable or decreasing energy use. Not a stable hashrate, as the technical progress of ASIC hardware of course will still continue.
In addition I believe the quota of renewable energy will grow steadily. It's simply the cheapest source of energy that exists. And that also helps to counter the "climate killer" narrative.
I honestly wish that it wouldn't just keep rising, because of what i said it would create problems for anyone holding. And if it would crash too far down now, it would create whole another problem if those people would lose their savings on it.
That's why I think the next bear market could be an important milestone if we manage to significantly reduce the downward volatility. If falling knives become less scary, and more and more people switch from the "riding the bull waves" model to DCA or contrarian trading, that could be weakening the "Bitcoin can go to zero" narrative a lot
From volatility that used to be quite uncontrolled, perhaps today we already have volatility that is more programmed (artificial) because very powerful players hold about 10% of the max supply, which is no small thing (although it may seem that way to some).
Well the ETF companies are imo not a single entity as the legal owners are the ETF holders. (Micro)Strategy on the other side, as the biggest individual holder, is at 3-4%. So I'm not sure if there are now more "whales" with the power to really move the price than before.
I however think I agree with the "more controlled" volatility. I attribute that however to the fact that more professional players are now in Bitcoin, and (in comparison) less weak hands. Even retailers are learning, they use DCA more frequently now instead of the extremely cyclical behaviour of, let's say 2017.
I also think the "mysterious Internet thing" narrative is weakening too. I occasionally see it still, above all in comment sections of newspapers and similar platforms, but a few years ago (pre-pandemic) it was the prevailing narrative and now it's becoming a minority.