There is not much change in USD strength / weakness. copper, crude oil, gold, aud, eur, gbp, jpy (vs USD) etc hardly moved.
If the value of the medium of exchange is rising 4%/year instead of falling 2%/year, then the "buy now, pay later" stuff can just use a different discount rate. It doesn't create any problem for payments. Deflation doesn't disincentivise spending any more than the existence of index funds does. The link between deflation and economic collapse is a myth. The US had high deflation combined with high growth in 1870-1900. Around the world and across time, there's basically no correlation between moderate inflation/deflation and economic growth. Cryptocurrencies that nobody uses are of infinite supply. Social networks nobody uses are of infinite supply, so I suppose that makes Facebook's monopoly worthless. /s
This is a point that I would like to address. Facebook, on its own, will very likely die. They already had to buy Instagram, which fortunately was a very good move. They also bought WhatsApp, which they will likely find a way to monetize since they are apparently going to be reading messages. So Facebook as a company might stay current because it keeps absorbing new platforms or technologies, unless TikTok of course climbs to the top, but the Facebook website as we know might not be used as much. Heck, even the desktop version of FB quickly grew out of fashion as more users moved to mobile. FB was lucky to have stepped up their "app" game just in time. But Bitcoin cannot grow and evolve like Facebook can. Its essentially stuck where it is with high transaction costs, and low transaction speeds. Perhaps the only thing it has going for it is the fixed supply, but nobody is forcing anyone to use Bitcoin. Most companies only survive because they adapt, but I don't see how Bitcoin can follow this same path. You could even say the dollar adapted because it went digital once consumers used mostly credit cards and online transactions. The dollar also adapted because one day it was backed by gold, and then it wasn't. It was also tied into the price of oil, so that too had a dramatic impact. But Bitcoin cannot adapt in any of these ways. I honestly would not be shocked if one day, a major effort is put forth to make people switch to something new, and just like that, it can fall out of fashion.
I've heard these same arguments about Gold, but it still just sits there, slowly increasing in price. Weird, huh?
Recently came across her analysis of Ethereum. Her analysis of BTC is a worthy read for bulls and bears alike. https://www.lynalden.com/invest-in-bitcoin/
Bitcoin is for large settlements, and a store of value, not for buying a coffee everyday. For that you can use lightning network or a credit card. You can pay your credit card bill with bitcoin. Compared to wire transfers at most banks, bitcoin transactions have lower costs, higher limits, higher speed, higher security, higher protection from interference by any third party, etc. Protocol stability is necessary to make it a secure and durable store of value. Bitcoin's fundamental purpose will not require any major changes, but if any changes were actually necessary to save it, the community could be convinced to hardfork it. Altcoins where the devs can unilaterally push out updates every week are not acceptable as a store of value because the devs can sieze assets, debase the currency, or have catastrophic bugs in their frequent updates. If it's not decentralized, it's not secure. This is why Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, etc are a joke.