I'm somewhat using it as a stand-in, but I do have this gut feeling that bitcoin has a few characteristics that will make it the standard (more on this later).
I also think there will be digital dollars issued by central banks. In that respect, I don't see Bitcoin being used for day to day financial transactions. I see it being used as a backing value store for these digital dollars though.
I think economists and central banks throughout the world are reluctantly coming to grips with the effects of going off Bretton Woods:
- There is more influence over financial cycles so they can be smoothed over to help with the functioning of day to day life. This is desirable.
- The above influence has gone too far and has created an epic asset bubble and economic disparity that is even concerning to many of the world's most powerful and wealthy (i.e., it's creating an existential risk to them). Obviously this is undesirable and even worse, the central banks have no potential solutions to deal with this in their existing toolchain.
Why do I think bitcoin will win out? Somewhat for the same reasons I'm skeptical of that backdoor scenario. The major national governments have little trust amongst themselves, this trust is getting worse, and we're seeing an adversarial situation play out.
- China and some other economies outside the G7 want off of the USD as a reserve currency
- The G7 are reluctant to accept a world in which China exerts the financial influence they give up
All will realize something in the world's financial system has to change and for the sake of world peace a new arrangement is worth a shot. But none of these adversaries trust each other in such a way that a nationally derived crypto would be acceptable as the basis for a value backing store. Furthermore, existing assets will inherently be untrustworthy too because they're in a bubble. Nobody knows the true value of a house any more. Step in crypto...
- I don't think it will be Ethereum because as I said, reputation has been tarnished (there may be Russian influence). But it also tries to do too much and that may be undesirable for a value backing store.
- I think it will end up being Bitcoin simply because it's a lot more simple. It does less. And furthermore, nobody really knows who invented it so it is inherently not tied to any given nation. Or at least there's plausible deniability about it having been invented by a particular state.
- Other cryptos are distant runners up to these two main players so I don't see any other viable alternatives