This makes sense and I appreciate your succint answer.

I think the source of my confusion was consuming too much media where the implication seemed to be that fiat would just stop/die out, we'd then stop valuing BTC in fiat, and then we'd switch over to this new perfect system. Rather, what I needed to realize was that future value will be derived from our current system and there will be a lot of calibration over time as you mentioned. Up until now I have never heard any of the Youtubers, etc. I've been watching directly address this.

Of course my question seems stupid in hindsight, but I guess the fact that it does seem stupid now is a good indicator of exactly why I needed to ask it.