> what makes you say that? I use bitcoin to conduct private transactions regularly and its pretty darn solid for that purpose. Doing such a transaction over the internet, before bitcoin, required you to use permissioned rails.

Just because it can be used like that doesn't mean it actually succeeded. The vast majority of Bitcoin is held as a speculative investment, and the deflationary aspects are a strong disincentive to regular circulation.

it failed at its purpose if it achieved said purpose but a bunch of people are also using it as a speculative asset?

And yet if a hundred million people tried to use it the way you do, the whole system would implode.

A monetary system that only works if a small number of people use it is...not useful.

having permissionless money is quite useful IMO. I'm not concerned with it being a mass phenomenon