Per-transaction is only meaningful if you believe Bitcoin's only utility is by competing with Visa for everyday transactions like buying a cup of coffee.

But if you find that Bitcoin is a digital, permissionless, borderless, uncensorable store of value, a better gold than gold, then it doesn't need millions of transactions per second.

Bitcoin is just fine as the most secure settlement layer and long-term store of value for large, infrequent and expensive transactions.

Fiat money isn't going anywhere, Visa doesn't need to be replaced, and Bitcoin doesn't need to pay for your coffee to be useful. It can do what it does best, coexisting with fiat systems and other cryptocurrencies.

> Bitcoin is just fine as the most secure settlement layer and long-term store of value for large, infrequent and expensive transactions.

It's not, because its inability to scale means folks are pushed onto L2 which has none of the guarantees you mention.

If I buy real estate or fine art to defend against the money printer, my transactions are large, infrequent, slow and expensive.

As Bitcoin's use as a store of value increases and transaction throughput remains constant, transactions will be larger, less frequent and more expensive.

I won't get pushed out onto L2 just like I'm not pushed to liquidate real estate or art collections. I don't transact in long-term stores of value more than once every few years, and then I expect the transaction will be large, slow and expensive.

Users can choose to adopt the trade-offs of second layer solutions if and when it is convenient for them, and with whatever portion of their wealth that they like.

Almost like classical finance has worked forever. Remind me what we’re Expending this energy for again? Or are we closing in on the end of the speedrun?

For situations in which the risk profile of traditional fiat currencies doesn't meet your needs.

It is a strawman to say that Bitcoin can only be useful if it replaces all traditional financial instruments.

I've never said that. I've said it does literally nothing better than classical systems. That point remains in contention. The idea that it's somehow everything and nothing at the same time, just a perpetual number go up machine, is a pro-crypto argument.

These guarantees aren't needed for most daily transactions. Using Visa with Bitcoin is fine, and does not undermine the security of the currency.

Your absolute right, those guarantees are not needed in most circumstances, which is why bitcoin is irrelevant.

Per-transactions costs matter a lot, you can’t just hand wave that away if you’re hoping to actually persuade anyone.

As far as scaling Bitcoin goes: prove it. It’s been a decade and it still does 4tps.

>As far as scaling Bitcoin goes: prove it. It’s been a decade and it still does 4tps.

Sure. The Lightning Network already exists, is working and in use, and can in principle do essentially unlimited TPS.

Bitcoin doesn't need to scale to millions of TPS to be successful (since payments and microtransactions aren't its only use case), but it so happens that it can do that through second layer technologies.

Pointing to a Visa card to solve crypto scaling is probably not the argument I’d go for.

That's exactly how the Bitcoin's payment layer scales. Visa is just one solution, but that's probably the most popular one. The settlement layer doesn't have to scale, because it's possible to scale the payment layer. You get all the benefits of sound money with the usability of fiat money.

It scales by using the system that Bitcoin was supposed to replace?

Again, that’s not an argument for Bitcoin, just so we’re clear. This is an argument for visa instead.

Eh, that was an example that everyone can grasp. A more inline alternative would be Lightning Network.

No, Visa is a payment network that works with any currency. Bitcoin replaces the US dollar, not Visa.

Well ok do you have any basis for that or is that speculation?