Yesterday bitcoin's average transaction fee was over $31. Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum both exceed bitcoin's transaction count consistently now, with Ethereum far exceeding bitcoin's crippled transaction capacity.
Yes, this was absent from the analysis. Bitcoins security derives from computer power which is currently paid by combination of fees and inflation (mining). We have yet to see what happens to the prices and security when mining dries out.
It would also be interesting to see a large market event that causes many people to move bitcoin at once. (What happens to transaction costs? Does this affect perception of bitcoin as a safe store of value?)
Bitcoin will have to adapt in a big way before inflation stops. It needs to crank transaction volume way up, or otherwise collect fees (for example smart contracts) in order to keep mining profitable.
Scaling only the price of transactions is NOT going to work, but it has quite a bit of runway to figure this out.
I imagine everyone holding bitcoin will wise up and agree to a fork in 2040 to stop the halvings. The people who use bitcoin as a store of value should be willing to pay a bit of inflation to maintain the network. As a bitcoin holder, I really don't want to rely on people transacting on the network to fund its security and existence.
No it goes up and down based on how "busy" the mempool is, its basically a measurement of the overall desire to get a transaction on the blockchain. When bitcoin goes through big price swings this tends to increase number of TX which therefore increases the fee.
It would also be interesting to see a large market event that causes many people to move bitcoin at once. (What happens to transaction costs? Does this affect perception of bitcoin as a safe store of value?)