Hi variable,
Sorry for the delay in the response. Thank you for the excellent piece. I plan to read it in full at some point here when I have more time, but for now going to address some of the comments you made in your comment. The market will always be manipulated as long as there is limited regulations and enforcements. Truly free markets aren't healthy - they are predatory. It's why we have 'limited' capitalism rather than full-on capitalism. For now, much of price action is dictated by a wealthy few.
I don't know how much stock I put into the "store of value" argument. As mentioned from your quote, gold is associated with being a store of value partially because it is ingrained in us from birth practically that gold is valuable. New technologies are adopted quickly because they have utility that improve our lives (e.g: horses to cars). It's difficult to convince the general populace that magical internet money is the new gold - especially when most of them weren't really looking for a new gold in the first place.
Not only that, but Bitcoin has dropped 80%+ several times throughout its history which I hardly call a store of value. While Bitcoin has been called digital gold for years, it seems that people call it such more frequently during times of 'bubbly' activity to justify valuation. Over the long-term, cryptocurrencies must be better and easier to use than the equivalent centralized option or it's just going to continue to be niche. Plain and simple. I tend to think the vocal minority makes it seem like privacy censorship resistance is important, but most people simply don't care enough to deal with additional inconveniences to achieve such goals. I mean, Facebook & Google are two of the largest companies in the world. Anyway, some quick initial thoughts to chew on for now.