The very first thing to understand about Bitcoin is that its store of value function is at least an order of magnitude more important than its payment or remittance functions. Very roughly speaking, something like 90% of the value of Bitcoin is in something the government cannot possibly replicate without relinquishing control of the money supply. They could create digital money, but that wouldn't touch the lion's share of Bitcoin's value proposition.
We are in agreement, this is also why most of bitcoin's earliest adopters are those who were already looking for a sound money alternative with independent control of the money supply.
That said bitcoin's payment or remittance functions are what make the store of value function valuable. The more useful the payment functions are and are used the more valuable the store of value function becomes. Imagine bitcoin with no payment function but the same store of value function, yes the store of value function would work and remain fixed, but it wouldn't be valued very much.
This is the fiat money as a technology invention argument on why dollars beat gold, better payment functionality makes a given money system more used, which in turn makes it more valuable. The fact that bitcoin's payment functions are superior to fiat is what makes the project have a fighting chance.
I'm not sure I agree here, this seems backward to me. The payment or remittance function is only useful if people value the SOV aspect.
Bitcoin has a fighting chance because of its unique monetary policies and its "sound money" function, not because of its payment system.
What if Bitcoin's payment system was significantly more limited (for example let's say a payment took weeks because of the crypto or both parties had to be physically present). Bitcoin would still have the fixed 21M supply, but do you think it would be widely used if that were the case? Probably not. And without being widely used those 21M wouldn't have much value.
What about Rai stones? They perfectly achieve the store of value function, but since payments are a tad difficult that system did not exactly take off, which in turn limits the total stored value.
My point was simply that the more useful the payment function is found to be, the more people use it, which in turn increases the total value of the system. So I think payment functionality goes hand in hand with store of value functionality, not necessarily one driving the other.
Many of Bitcoin's early adopters were drawn to the store of value function and sound money principles, but if we see wider adoption it will be due to the usefulness of the payment functionality of Bitcoin. It's likely a majority in the US today
disagree with Bitcoin's fixed supply nature and believe the government needs to "adjust" supply to "grow with" the economy. This wrong, but probably 95% of the people I know believe it anyway. They will join Bitcoin for payment functionality first, then benefit from sound money principals as they adopt it.