I agree with you. It's a speculative asset at least for now.
Its because there is still an endless amount of funny business in all corners of the market and economy.
Energy is starting I think to show how important reality is. Energy cannot be printed, and the price is reflecting this. You either have it to sell or you don't.
When it comes to our monetary system, there are still too many ways to manipulate it, but even this door is closing. We see the Fed only has interest rates as a tool, and as it is, higher interest rates is what's needed for having any chance of fighting inflation (even if this time its a supply issue and not a demand issue.) Enough people think the government already cannot afford the interest expense on the debt given the amount of tax receipts, so even interest expense payments will have to eventually be printed!
Who knows how long until the printing games stop, but we must be close. When you need to use one credit card to pay off another credit card, that can't go on much longer.
But the bigger issue I think is with all of this rehypothecation. Bitcoin bulls talk about it all the time, and treasuries, being a pristine asset, suffer from this. Nobody knows who has what. In fact, all the repo business blowing up the past year or two was supposedly the Fed having to come in and bail out lots of entities that couldn't borrow because they had no good collateral to lend in order to keep afloat. The market itself is too scared to lend to some entities because of a huge risk of not getting paid.
So if you ask me, bitcoin being a bearer asset with 100% conclusive proof of ownership and ability to transfer so easily will see its day in the sun fairly soon. Its all actually happening like some predicted. First the poorest countries collapse because they need dollars that they cannot get, which strengthens the dollar, as we see, and then the strong dollar implodes the US.
When we see bitcoin rise, could it not be the case that everyone and their mother rushes in? And this isn't gonna be just a case of a pump and dumb like GME or AMC. This will be people buying to hold it, taking it off exchanges, into cold storage. We will see rehypothecation become a common word.
Here in the west, many people admit that we don't yet "nee" bitcoin because we have access to credit and savings options. But many parts of the world don't, and their life is immensely improved with crypto. The system will clearly work for everyone at every extreme.
I know this last part sounds stupid, but its so true. Many didn't want to buy at 4k in 2020, but did buy at 50k and 60k like me. Well now its 18k, and many still don't want to buy. Fine, if it gets to 15k or 10k even better. But will they need to see a move back to 30k in order to get bullish? With they want to see ATH break at 70k in order think its not going somewhere? If everyone put just 1% into bitcoin, if only as a hedge or lottery ticket, imagine what that would do to price!
