[ephbit]

Except, it'll be hard to prevent the many (as opposed to the very few) from buying this deflationary currency and thus profiting from speculating or putting their savings in it.

As long as the masses have something to offer to the few, their labor, they can profit from the deflation to the exact same degree as the few do.

This is what sets it apart from other easily tradeable financial assets. With most (if not all) other easily tradeable financial assets, there's no way for the individual to prevent governments and finance companies from skimming off arbitrage and thus making the individual lose relative to them, yet again.

With Bitcoin, as long as the individual sticks to the plain asset (instead of some derivative), no intermediary can claim the greater share of gains through appreciation.

[mouse_]

The problem is that nobody buys bitcoin, they simply give some (generally shady) exchange their money and hope the number in their web browser goes up. Bitcoin COULD kill fractional reserve, IF people understand bitcoin, but they do not.

[ephbit]

Not every speculator/investor buys Bitcoin directly or transfers their coins from exchange to wallet, true. But many do.

As can be seen from all the addresses contained in the blockchain. Some are typos/mistakes or burner addresses, sure. But a decent portion are actual addresses used by actual people or orgs.