Perhaps that will change one day, perhaps it won't. Unless the price keeps going up greater than 20% per year perpetually(no exponential growth is perpetual) the electricity use will eventually drop. The people who are angry about the idea of it will eventually not care enough to be angry.
>* I figured a realistic max value for 1 BTC would be 500k-1M. So the big money has been made, imo.*
I agree that the big money has been made. If it did actually replace money it might be worth a few million. That's not going to happen anytime soon though, even if things went well for bitcoin it would take decades more to reach that point. It's a high risk investment with a possible yield of 10x to 100x in a timeframe that you could probably get a better return from something far more secure.
Sure you could make heaps buying and selling at just the right time, but trading on volatility can be done in any market, and usually results in people losing all their money to the inside traders.
Right, but that use case could be enough to see the price continue to increase. Gold is also generally used as a store of value. The average person hasn't been going into a store using gold to buy things in the US in more than 100 years. But gold's market cap (~ $17T) is still greater than Bitcoin (~$2T). So, if Bitcoin is a better store of value than gold (debatable), then the price still has plenty of room to grow.
All sorts of thugs use bitcoin. 14 years ago it was gamblers and drug users. Now it is for people who want to steal billions.
Like when London real estate was used by Russian oligarchy 20 years ago.
Value is there, it is just sad state of things.
With that said, the more I think about BTC, the less sense it makes to me. Exceedingly few people actually use it for anything practical. The “store of value” functionality has completely eclipsed the practical use that Bitcoin maxis were preaching back then.
Since 2016-2017, it seems like people have bought it for the sole purpose of seeing someone else pay more for it.
It will never become some “universal” currency that overtakes national fiats. Right now it seems like people are only hoping for governments to hoard up BTC, to moon the price and provide exit liquidity for early holders - which IMO would be reckless spending.
It is the ultimate make-believe asset.
Edit: also, when I ran the numbers, I figured a realistic max value for 1 BTC would be 500k-1M. So the big money has been made, imo.