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That's the thing, it's not a matter of will. Advantageous transitions to other currencies have always been done to more stable currencies, not less. It's not the case with bitcoin. The reason such groups you mention can not scale is what's described in the paradox. The problem occurs precisely in the scaling phase. And it is insurmountable in that math can not be avoided. That's why the solution to the paradox of adoption will come in a form that's not bitcoin itself, but something that will be built upon it.
It seems like you're ignoring the possibility that the dollar becomes the more volatile currency once we get near mass adoption.
But that's what's described in the paradox: for that to happen, we have to get near mass adoption. And near mass adoption will happen when the dollar becomes the more volatile currency, which will happen once we get near mass adoption. You can't escape that chicken-before-the-egg paradox.
I just don't find anything compelling about this "paradox". Many major currencies have become volatile throughout history, without bitcoin existing. So, Bitcoin does not have to even be related to the volatility. It could simply be there, being less volatile than the failing currency.
The dollar has plenty of structural problems of its own for people to eventually lose trust in it. The outside option of bitcoin is just another straw on the camel's back.
Bitcoin's volatility comes down as more people use it for daily exchange, which is happening. The dollar's volatility goes up as it becomes increasingly clear to people that debt servicing is untenable. At some point, those two trendlines cross each other.
Many major currencies have become volatile throughout history, without bitcoin existing.
Exactly, that's why only transitions to more stable currencies are advantageous, not the other way around.
The dollar has plenty of structural problems of its own for people to eventually lose trust in it.
Structural problems mean nothing to the mass of people, only value-storing power, for which the dollar offers more stability than bitcoin, specially when coupled with other financial tools like interest rates, which also have the plus of being relatively constant.
Bitcoin's volatility comes down as more people use it for daily exchange, which is happening.
The scale at which bitcoin is used for daily exchange is non-existent in comparison to stablecoins, regarding not amounts exchanged but the user base.
The dollar's volatility goes up as it becomes increasingly clear to people that debt servicing is untenable.
Nowhere close to bitcoin's volatility.
At some point, those two trendlines cross each other.
The current trend is for stablecoin adoption, which has effectively happened and is growing orders of magnitude faster than bitcoin. That's the trend you should be looking at. That's the trendline that wins. Bitcoin will become the basis of that by offering a much better product, a better stablecoin, but it will not be the currency in itself.
Bitcoin's volatility comes down as more people use it for daily exchange
This is the phrase where the paradox hides, the quid of the matter. You can not make that argument without assuming that adoption has started because volatility has started to come down. But your argument is that that happens because adoption is growing. You can not escape that chicken-before-the-egg paradox, and that's what's compelling about it.
Adoption has started. You're acting like I'm saying we're near mass adoption, which I've never said and is obviously not true.
Where I think your paradox doesn't make sense is that there is no single point of switching over from one currency to the other. Adoption occurs at the individual level, for idiosyncratic reasons, and even there it's not all at once.
More people are holding more bitcoin and taking payments in it. It doesn't matter how few are currently doing so currently because I'm talking about the trend. As that continues, it functions more and more as a unit of account for those people, which reduces its volatility.
As more people have and use bitcoin and more people request it for payment and its volatility declines, it becomes more attractive for others to use more than they already do.
This action on the margins was my case when we discussed it two years ago and it still seems right to me. Your paradox doesn't really factor in to it, beyond being one of many factors on the margins for people.
I have also said for a while that on a global scale we probably will see hyperdollarization before hyperbitcoinization, so we might not be that far apart in what we think is coming. I just don't think the process will stop until we land at full bitcoin monetization.
You're acting like I'm saying we're near mass adoption
No Sr I don't!
there is no single point of switching over from one currency to the other
That's exactly the argument of the paradox. It happens precisely because of the unavoidable graduality of an adoption process.
It doesn't matter how few are currently doing so currently because I'm talking about the trend.
It absolutely does matter how few. If the trend of people adopting stablecoins grows faster than the trend of people adopting bitcoin, the distance will grow over time, which will cause bitcoin having an increasingly small percentage of the user base, despite being increasingly more adopted. As that tendency continues, which is currently the case, volatility will remain, which is currently the case.
Your paradox doesn't really factor in to it
It effectively does, as it contemplates what happens when those actions on the margins try to scale up.
so we might not be that far apart in what we think is coming
My argument is that both things will help each other. Bitcoin will not replace a currency like the dollar but it will allow to implement a better dollar. In that sense I side with the argument that bitcoin is digital gold, rather than currency.
it will allow to implement a better dollar.
I'd say "require", rather than allow. I don't see it as sustainable, though. Just like with gold, the ability to cheat will eventually be too tempting for the money printers and the dollar will collapse like every other fiat has.
If the trend of people adopting stablecoins grows faster than the trend of people adopting bitcoin, the distance will grow over time,
Not indefinitely. Adoption curves are logistic, not exponential. If bitcoin is on a logistic adoption curve that is lagging stablecoins, it actually implies that bitcoin will displace stablecoins in the future: i.e. stable coins plateau and then bitcoin eats into their share.
I still don't see that as an insurmountable problem. Other currency transitions have been rocky for people but that didn't stop them from happening.
We already have some people taking salaries and paying for goods with bitcoin. There's no particular reason that group can't grow. In fact, given one group of people who are only willing to use bitcoin and another who have no ideological attachment to any particular currency, the trend will be more people using bitcoin.