What will happen if Bitcoin fails to become a currency?

It is common to hear, even among proponents of the protocol, that Bitcoin does not necessarily need to be used as a daily medium of exchange to succeed. The argument is seductive: Bitcoin would be a pure store of value, an antifragile "digital gold," while fiat currencies or other cryptocurrencies, like stablecoins, would handle payments.

This vision is not only incomplete, it is dangerous for the network's survival.

Unlike physical gold, which remains a stable atom even if locked in a vault for a century, Bitcoin is a living, dynamic system. Although the Bitcoin blockchain can be described as "trustless," its security depends entirely on the economic activity taking place within it. As the issuance of new BTC decreases every 4 years during the halving, transaction fees must take over to remunerate miners. But are we sure this will be enough?

If Bitcoin fails to become a circulating currency, its security model collapses. Two major trajectories then emerge: a technical death by institutionalization, or a silent revolution led by a resistant minority.

The Mortal Risk of "Financialization": When inactivity kills the network

The first scenario, the most alarming, is one where Bitcoin succeeds as a financial asset but fails as a global, decentralized currency.

This is the trap of "financialization" or "bancarisation". In this world, the complexity of self-custody and volatility discourage the general public from using the blockchain. Instead of holding their private keys, users buy ETF shares or stocks in Treasury Companies, use crypto-banks or apps like PayPal/Revolut to get exposure to the Bitcoin price, avoiding on-chain fees that were kept at rock bottom throughout 2025.

If the majority of flows pass through these trusted third parties, real transactions disappear from the blockchain or its layers, such as the Lightning Network, which also contributes to fee generation. When you send BTC from one Coinbase account to another, or when BlackRock exchanges billions with another fund, nothing happens on the Bitcoin network. These are merely accounting entries in a private database managed by custody firms that hold the private keys. This is "Paper Bitcoin," recreating the very system with which gold failed.

If Bitcoin serves only as immobile collateral we might live the collapse of the security model:

    1. Mempool Desertification: There are not enough transactions to maintain miner remuneration,

    2. Miner Bankruptcy: Without transaction fees to offset the programmed drop in block rewards (subsidy), miners will unplug their machines.

    3. Critical Vulnerability: If the network's hashrate drops, the cost to attack Bitcoin (via a 51% attack) becomes affordable for a hostile State or entity.

In short, if Bitcoin is not used as a peer-to-peer medium of exchange, it transforms into a giant with feet of clay, controlled by a few centralized institutions, before dying of technical insecurity.

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However, this scenario of atrophy via institutionalization can be avoided. It does not require the entire planet to adopt Bitcoin instantly, but rather that a hard core of users maintains constant economic activity.

Even if monetary adoption remains minority-driven initially, it acts as an immune system. As long as there is a circular economy where individuals earn, spend, and save in Bitcoin without intermediaries, security will be funded.

This is where the second scenario emerges: one where using Bitcoin is no longer just a payment choice, but a political and economic act.

The Social Fracture: Resistance as a Vector for Forced Adoption

If Bitcoin fails to convince the general public immediately through ease of use, it will then impose itself through economic necessity, creating a temporary two-speed society.

In this scenario, Bitcoin is actively used by a minority of "resistants." For them, using Bitcoin as money is a total rejection of the fiat system.

We would then see 2 hermetic worlds existing side by side:

    - The Fiat World: The majority of the population continues to use currencies like the Euro or the Dollar. They remain subject to structural inflation, the dilution of their savings, banking surveillance, and the risk of censorship (frozen accounts, withdrawal limits). Their purchasing power erodes slowly but surely due to money printing.

    - The Digital Citadel: The minority that uses Bitcoin as a monetary standard extracts itself from these constraints. By saving in an uncensorable currency with a finite supply, their purchasing power tends to increase over the long term, giving them more economic opportunities.

This active monetary use allows Bitcoiners to live on another standard and accumulate more capital (real estate, businesses, resources, etc.) at prices that seem derisory when denominated in BTC, but are rendered inaccessible due to fiat currency inflation. The gap widens.

It is not only that Bitcoiners get richer, it is a paradigm shift. Those remaining in the fiat system work more to earn a weak currency, while the Bitcoin economy rewards savings and production.

Over time, the prosperity gap between these two groups will become unsustainable for those left on the outside.

Bitcoin adoption will not happen because the user interface became pretty or because merchants accept it for fun. It will happen out of survival instinct.

The merchant, the entrepreneur, or the employee, watching their fiat currency melt away, will be compelled to demand payment in hard money to preserve the fruit of their labor, contradicting Gresham's Law. It will no longer be an ideological option, but a necessary flight to the only available lifeboat.

Conclusion: Slow Death or Necessary Delay?

Only the first scenario carries the seeds of the protocol's actual death. If Bitcoin is sterilized within institutional vaults, it will slowly extinguish, a victim of its own speculative success. This is the only true failure possible: transforming a system of freedom into an inert asset, incapable of funding its own security.

However, the probability of this extinction remains low in the face of game theory reality. The economic incentives described in the second scenario are too powerful to be ignored. The competitive advantage Bitcoin offers to those who actually use it (sovereignty, unseizability, protection against inflation) creates a positive disequilibrium that the market cannot ignore. There will always be actors, resistors, or entrepreneurs who have a vital need for the public chain's unique properties to transfer value without permission.