And this is exactly what makes it a terrible store of value. As Wikipedia says, "The point of any store of value is risk management due to a stable demand for the underlying asset." Stable demand is definitely not a characteristic of Bitcoin.
no reason it stores value outside of the fact that we all agree that it does, and we all accept it for curreny. Bitcoin is at that point. It's turning into digital gold.
I agree with the original commenter. Looking at Bitcoin as a currency with terrible UX kept me from investing for the past years. Now it's going past inflection point - it's a store of value that will be acceptable everywhere soon.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/274684/global-demand-for...
Gold has been valued from time immemorial for its unique aesthetic and practical properties entirely aside from its value as a currency.
That's clearly distinct from, say, paper dollars, which indeed have value only because we agree that they do (and because they're backed by the robust efforts of a government, of course).
As an example of the difference, look at oil or bananas. Demand for those is significant, but because storage is inconvenient, holdings are low compared with total commodity flow.
Transactions are necessary but insufficient for something to become a store of value. For example, steel is sold in great amount, but it is not a store of value.
For example, let's suppose that I made a deal with Porche to buy the first car off their assembly line each year. I take it and store it away as an investment. Is there an existing reserve of 2018 Porches? No, I have the first one. Does anybody else do this? Doesn't matter. It's still a good store of value as long as people keep wanting 2018 Porches.
People could use steel as a store of value; it's just an inconvenient commodity to deal with because the value per gram is so low. You need to store a lot of it. But rarer metals will do fine.