@fiatjaf points out reasons why bitcoin…
fiatjaf points out reasons why bitcoin could fail. I like this argument, because we should never be complacent. But I think it's overly negative. Bitcoin has been a hugely successful project, and with nostr and zaps its getting even better.
Without higher transaction throughput bitcoin is not useless, because it's a store of value with finite supply. It's true, bitcoin was not created to be digital gold, but if it competes with or replaces gold, that's a huge achievement. There are indications that governments will allow bitcon to compete with gold.
I'd love it if drive chains worked, but I feel the game theory is lacking when you plug in real world numbers. On any successful drive chain the market cap quickly moves to 1000x the daily fees, which is an unstable game theoretic state.
Drivechains are a great project in that they are educating the whole bitcoin community and getting people to question their assumptions. But I think in it's current form it's a long shot.
Personally I would like to try out some of these use cases over nostr, and allow users or relays to create a peg-out system that requires a 2/3rds honest majority.