[alexasmyths]

"For the last 8 years, various sources have been predicting a Bitcoin collapse over and over again. It's still here, alive and well and quite high."

It's 'high' mostly because there are a large number of holders who are just sitting there on it.

If it's not being used as a currency, than I can't see how in the long term, people consider it to be a 'store of value' when it could be regulated, deemed illegal, or declared all sorts of things by regulatory bodies which fundamentally change it's nature.

And as an arbitrary store of value? We have tons of 'stores of value' available to us already that are considerably less volatile and more liquid.

So what is the point again? What problem does it solve, and why should anyone want it for a material reason?

I too agree that it will be around for a very long time, but what happens when the very speculative press - and even HN readers get 'bored' of all the news? When the Google queries start to wane (and BTW I think BTC will enjoy a huge surge in interest by 'everyday folks of the world' for a while before it wanes), but eventually, people will lose interest if it's just a 'store of value'.