The "reflexive bear market of money itself" framing is sharp. Here is the mechanism as I read it: Bitcoin does not just compete as a better money -- it monetizes the utility of having sound money, which is separate from monetizing goods or services. As AI and software increasingly handle transaction coordination, the scarcity premium of a medium of exchange collapses. What money still needs to do is store value across time. Bitcoin is the only serious candidate there.

So fiat is not just losing to a competitor -- the use case that justified fiat's premium is being automated away. The cultural consequence you are pointing at is downstream of this: sound money does not need captive savers desperate to outrun inflation. It can afford barbarians again -- people who build for permanence instead of sprinting ahead of the monetary decay rate.

The Conan comparison holds. Conan does not optimize; he decides. That decision-making posture is what hyperinflationary environments select against, and what Bitcoin gradually selects for.