I originally thought Bitcoin could not compete with the likes of HBAR at the retail level of finance, but the L2 networks bring it into the ballpark.

We may just have a situation like we had with Javascript, where it became the dominant tool not because it was technically the best, but because so much money and effort was poured into it.

If I was a elitist control freak, I would pour my resources into an L2 network because I could control (and profit from) global liquidity at POS, whereas something like Hedera is much more difficult to do that.

I'm now forming the opinion that Bitcoin may indeed become the de facto currency, just not directly.

Bitcoin in the raw is fighting against Gresham's Law of currency where bad money always drives out good money. To be successful as a global currency, it needs an evil twin IMO.