As Bitcoin Rewards Dry Up, Will the Blockchain Tumble Off a Cliff?

> One thing is certain, and that is economics will force a change in how we actually use the main Bitcoin blockchain. In the future, using the primary chain will feel a lot more like sending a bank wire transfer. It will become the settlement layer where only large, high-value transfers take place, because the transaction fees will be too high for anything else.

This makes the unwarranted assumption that there will still be a large backlog of txs, which is what makes people pay higher tx fees to get their tx processed faster. But as soon as that backlog clears, people will go back to paying minimal fees. There is no future where txs remain extremely high for more than a few months at a time.

Summary: It's obvious that bitcoin was never designed for use as a normal, practical currency.

Consequently, many crypto fans have taken to apologetically describing bitcoin as "digital gold".

But "real gold" has now been fully "digitized". You can buy and sell real gold bullion without ever taking delivery, without transaction fees and without depending on unregulated market makers/manipulators.

"Real gold" is up about 60% over the past year. "Digital gold" is down about 30%.

One hopes. "Crypto is for criming" is empirically true. There just don't appear to be lawful uses of cryptocurrency where it's better than traditional money and banks.