The EU isn't doing anything to bitcoin. They have no ability to regulate bitcoin. They can make it traceable when it is held on kycd exchanges In their jurisdiction. That is a big difference
Anyone caught with large amounts of crypto can be treated as a criminal, the same way people who have large amounts of cash on them are treated. It's obviously harder to spot someone walking around with a hoard of crypto coins, no black briefcase required.
This is just another tool in an already very expansive toolbox. All in the name of "security".
1. Paying ransomware. 2. Buying drugs. 3. Day-trading.
That's it. There's no meaningful slice of the pie that goes to #4.
Almost all of us can agree that #1 is illegal, many people and countries currently believe that #2 is illegal, and almost all of us can agree that people participating in #3 should probably pay taxes on their gains/get tax credits on their losses.
Ironically, that's the strongest long term feature. But probably the one driving the least amount of volume (outside of hyperinflation states).
If the only reason for it existing is to show how many you have, it has zero value outside the possible curiosity of "Having the largest number that happens to match this set of arbitrary mathematical restrictions"
What external transaction use does is even out the day to day value changes and decrease volitility (transaction volume >> trading volume).
Without that, you'd see some value placed on it, but a large price moves as trading affects it. Come to think of it, that looks a lot like... hmm.
Custody of the two assets has bordering on nothing in common.
Exchange of the who assets has bordering on nothing in common.
Conflating them is wildly innacurate.
How much of world GDP does that leave?
I can figure some complex ways but somewhere, because there are not enough people using crypto, it will get exchanged and there you will be caught. In this scenario you are actually doing something illegal; spending money you did not declare to the gov for KYC/AML, so you can still be traced via the baker who exchanged your payment to euros. And if you used Monero or whatever, you are now an actual criminal trying to hide their tracks.
There would need to be a very large crowd accepting crypto for the crypto sake, not for the USD value to get anywhere here. Which is the dream of all the fans but this is not even close where crypto is currently and most govs are taking steps to prevent it getting there.
Currently, buying gift cards using the lightning network is faster than buying gift cards directly from merchants and there is no way Amazon or any other merchant can win the speed race using the traditional financial network.
From my understanding p2p exchange is the whole purpose of gift cards, so this activity is indistinguishable from other mainstream uses.