Thing is, there is a need for a market that is free of boundaries which nobody controls. You can see that in the Eurodollar market. It's a market for interest rates that are not controlled by the FED nor any other government entity.
The caveat, however, is the fact that only banks can access it. There is no way for John Doe to trade interbank spot rates for dollars outside the US. You can trade futures to bet on rate shifts, but not spot which would open lending/borrowing for you.
Does Joe Public need a USD spot market that isn't controlled by the FED? No, absolutely not, because his daily business is operated by a network of service providers that tells him what he's allowed to do in exchange for a seamless experience in payment, credit and trade.
But guess what? There are millions of people out there who don't have access to that network and there are also large players who want to operate outside of it, because it's slow, cumbersome and expensive for anything that isn't already baked into the system.
Ever tried to wire 1m to Interactive Brokers for margin reasons and access the funds to trade on that same day? It takes a week for the transfer to be settled and cleared because risk, compliance and AML has to check it first.
Because of that, business is slow and not very capital efficient, which leads to a system of credit lines...and credit lines are subject to counterparty risk, which is what almost ended the financial system in 2008.
In crypto you can transfer any amount in less than an hour and you can access it right away. You can transfer it wherever you want to without anyone blocking the transaction. It is the only free market out there and people take advantage of it. And like it or not, the majority of business is done in a gray area.
That's how Marc Rich established todays oil market which was oligopolized by the seven sisters before he traded with Cuba, Tunisia, Iran and probably every country sanctioned by the US. Was it illegal? Yes. Did it matter? No!
There is some really dirty business out there that is outside the public view. Bribing, payments for weapons that nobody must know, financing a coup to gain political influence. Usually the government has to use a complicated network of trusts, offshore entities and shady banks to cover up the flow of money. Right now, they send crypto...and on top of it they are able to follow the money to the last satoshi because everything is on chain.
Thinking about Bitcoin as a means to pay for your meal at Taco Bell is completely wrong. Joe Public will never need it for money transfer. But crypto allows for things that weren't possible before.
The public discussion about price moves, regulation and it's viability as a payment medium and store of value...none of that really matters.
It isn't a medium of freedom from the government, it isn't an inflation hedge, it's not the new payment network to replace cash, it's not a world currency and it's definitely not here to save everyone.
It's a permissionless, censorship free and trustless way to transfer money and each transaction can be tracked forever on a public database. Let that sink in and think about what you can do with it that is not possible within the traditional financial system. And then tell me why it will go to zero