Oddbean

Not saying gold is the answer. I'm saying that as long as fees are set in ever appreciating satoshis while block rewards keep halving the cost of moving Bitcoin is going to become prohibitive except for increasingly large amounts. Tell me I've got that wrong please.

I think in your equation you are probably missing technological adjustments (so that same hashpower => less energy required). the tx fee is not exactly connected to the exchange price, is more something which depends on the congestion of the network. Layer 2 solutions, like lightning, can mitigate the weight of tx on the layer 1, so that, eventually, more and more tx will happen on a layer 2. I suppose it is going to be "safe" to move up to 10k$ on lightning. (maybe I am wrong on this, it is just a quick mind evaluation) For tx of higher values it will probably still make sense to do it on layer 1. In the case it will not be, as you suppose, worth to send smaller amounts, probably different types of services will pop-up (escrows, insurances, or whatever our creativities will come up with)! Your point is not wrong, but it's probably missing some "organic" factors. And maybe I am being too naive! Who knows!

Lightning I trust for day to day transactions, but not for storage. Hence there is still the issue of, say, moving the funds onto lightning and back off there to do the weekly shop. Personally I wouldn't keep more than a few hundred $ worth on lightning for any length of time. You are right, the issue is block chain congestion. So the more popular Bitcoin becomes the more likely than ever it's usefulness will be limited to large amounts and big players, or else very small change activity on lightning. By extension, this will limit growth in value and price. This also means the system is vulnerable to DDOS and/or big players congesting the mempool at critical times and thereby manipulating the system. Increasing competition among miners is the only mathematical solution I can foresee. The bottom line is that in order for Bitcoin to remain useful and keep increasing in value, affordable domestic scale mining is the next area of development urgently needed so we can have millions more miners.

that makes sense! that is what we shall work for in fact! about lightning, I would also not use it for storage, but at the same time, running your own node, and opening several channels, will mitigate the risks connected to the lightning network. For bigger amount of money, but I think in the orders of a 10k, I would also store it on layer1. So yes, running nodes or, even better, mine bitcoin at home is a way forward!