I don’t think bitcoin (in its current form) will ever disappear completely now because of several factors.
The Wall Street ETFs and investment futures conmen don’t care how fast the network is (in fact they are afraid to change it) because they don’t trade bitcoin, they trade futures. You buy or sell a futures contract based on whether you think bitcoin prices are headed up or down. Eventually, I expect the CME to create options on futures contracts: traders will be able to buy and sell “puts and calls,” the right to buy (a “call” option) or sell (a “put” option) a bitcoin futures contract at a particular price by a particular date. They don’t do anything to help bitcoin just as they don’t do anything to help orange pickers pick oranges just because they trade in Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice.
The first bitcoin miners are holding roughly 40% of all bitcoins in existence. They want the bottleneck because that’s creating major price swings that generate the profit levels that allow them to sell out thousands of bitcoins with each swing upward. It drops they wait for new blood to enter the market then sell down slightly maximizing their profit. If the bottleneck was removed, evenly metered buying and selling would happen as bitcoins currency economy grew and bitcoins exchange rate would stabilize. That’s because the velocity of money increases price stability. Everyone on this forum subscribes to the quantity theory of money and completely abandons understanding the velocity. If you sold thousands of coins at that point the exchange rate would stabilize at the new lower exchange rate. The first bitcoins you sell would sell for much more than the last ones you sell. If you were one of the group of major holders sitting on millions of bitcoins, in this scenario the first coin you sell would make you $20,000 the last coin you sell would make you a dollar.
These two groups need to support the status quo. I’ve seen so many people on this forum look at the blocksize issue and fee issue with confusion and disgust because they fail to realize that bitcoin is the most manipulated commodity the world has ever seen. It’s that way for a reason, the people holding all the chips want it that way.
In short, the fees are being kept high and the block size problem isn't being resolved to make the price stay on the same level so that long time holders can finally get rid of their coins. Your theory suggests that people who have a lot of coins don't want them and prefer fiat instead. Why would they?
On one hand the coin is still multiplying their profits, and I'm not talking about unrealized potential profits but real ones that they can turn into physical things in a matter of days. One example can be the number of people offering real estate, cars, gold bars and other valuables for BTC. It could be difficult to cash out 10 million USD, but I've seen a number of properties worth over 1 million up for sale.
On the other hand, they are risking a major exodus if the fees keep rising. You know that if you throw all your coins on the market at once some of them sell for $11k and some for $1k but if you wait it out you may one day wake up to $5k per coin and this will make you get even less fiat.
I believe that the majority of holders don't concentrate on the ways of dumping their coins but turning them into real items. And let's not forget about people who already have millions in fiat. They don't want more fiat, they want an alternative that will work like an umbrella during a major shitstorm.
