Mainstream 'economics' might not like a deflationary currency, but since the last economic collapse was 10 years ago, I don't exactly trust 'economics'.
There are 21,000,000 BTC ever ever ever.
1)While abundance certainly reduces value (by creating oversupply), scarcity can't in and of itself create value if there isn't demand. Say there is only 1 original Sean Hunter painting in the entire world. Since there are 34 Vermeers, it should be worth more than a Vermeer, right? Well no. Vermeer was much much better at art than I will ever be, so noone is ever going to want to own anything I paint.
2)While there is a finite supply of BTC, there is a limitless supply of alternative altcoins, and no barrier whatsoever to entry, so people can keep creating them. Since these can be made functionally identical to BTC, why should BTC retain value through scarcity? It's not doing anything that can't easily be done via another altcoin.
>Vermeer was much much better at art
BTC is a 'much better coin' than alt coins. Its currently used worldwide. No other coin is used worldwide.
Its not just scarce, but its also highly demanded. Consider that people don't care about other coins, AND this is scarce. Its very difficult to become a rockstar, but once you do, your signature is very valuable.
BTC has broken into rockstar status. It has already happened. Alt coins have not.
Taxation is in fact continually reducing the value of Bitcoin when it's applied - you can't pay your taxes in BTC, so you have to sell some of them to gain USD to cover your taxes (easy enough: you do it when you trade). But the person you sell them to has the same requirement - they will have to sell some BTC and trade out into local currency to extinguish tax obligations. The long term trend is everyone eventually must trade out of BTC to cover their taxes.
The trajectory of BTC is inexorably down - the current market is irrational.
Nations want their taxes to be paid in local currencies.
Not sure why some situations requiring a different payment method has you hung up.
Lots of people hold gold. These people musy sell their gold to pay taxes.
This does not drive the price of gold down to 0, because that's not it works.
Bitcoin is exactly the same as any other commodity.
This isn't even remotely accurate.
Let's just use Litecoin as an example here, or even dogecoin for that matter. Are you seriously claiming those don't have global reach?
You can't pay to a Bitcoin wallet with an altcoin. It's a different currency.
I could start printing jstanley dollars but that won't impact the scarcity of actual dollars. Even though a jstanley dollar is still just a piece of paper that can do exactly the same things as a USD piece of paper.
The fact that you have never been subject to financial censorship puts you in a priviledged position that you are fortunate to be in.
I am similarly priviledged in that I have never needed to use TOR, but I still recognize the extreme value of something like TOR brings for the billions of people in the world who live under oppressive, censoring governments.