To wrap your head around how our paper currency system works you need to start with why it exists in he first place. A good primer on the subject is Nial Fergason’s Ascent Of Money.
Money is based on the value of human work. It is a medium of exchange (read substitute) given in trade to another person or entity possessing the results of that work. Those results might be gold, food, water, oxygen, entertainment, transportation, environment or anything one person possesses that another person with money wishes to have.
All of the things of value can be traced to the amount of human work required to obtain them. That may be hard to visualize because the thing(s) of value might have changed hands and changed composition through manufacturing, agriculture, time, etc.
The US Dollar’s ultimate (read redeemable) value is based of the good faith and reputation of the government’s ability to exchange that dollar into something of value, ie: the product of human work. That product of human work is best expressed on our government’s ability to extract money (read tax) the output of the country’s output. The US output of work is expressed in dollars because that was what was traded to come up with the total (read GDP.)
Our current national debt is about 125% of GDP right now. That’s pretty scary but to get an idea of where we stand, take a look at a bank’s situation. It would be unusual for all the the depositors to demand their money back at once. It happens but only when the people no longer have faith that they will be able to get their money (read results of human work) back.
So the question is "what would they use in place of the US dollar? Until that question is agreed upon by the majority of global participants, the dollar will remain the standard of global exchange.
Ignoring the politics here: chil1193 I would not pay a penny more than $578 per month. You’re giving your extra money to the mortgage holder when you could be saving or investing it. Or spending it on yourself - for $122/month you could be enjoying one or two nice dinners out or getting a spa or massage treatment or anything you’d like to do. You’ve earned it!
There’s an old saying that you can’t eat your house. Cash is better in your bank account than your bank’s accounts. Pay them the minimum as agreed and enjoy your low-cost mortgage! Even if for some reason savings accounts started paying less than 2.5% I’d still keep my money in my wallet than giving it to the bank. They don’t need it!
If Bitcoins are not recognized by banks, store cashiers at check-out, nor by 99.999% of other users of currency, then Bitcoins are not money. I know of only one non-US-based company I do business with that accepts Bitcoin in payment of its services. Also, it’s denominated in – what? – US dollars.
I know people who operate server farms mining Bitcoin, but I don’t know of one who’s actually used Bitcoin to purchase tangible goods like real estate or groceries. Everyone hangs on to it. No one surrenders Bitcoin to buy when Bitcoin is rising. No one sells anything for Bitcoin when its price is falling. It’s too unstable (not that our devalued dollar is a paragon of stability either). Bitcoin’s volatility makes it too high-risk for me to consider. If the day before one of these major drops, you had sold Bitcoin and immediately converted it to dollars I could see the potential, but no one ever does; they hang on to it.
I like the fact Bitcoin was invented as a reaction against banking monopolies like we’re saddled with the Fed and Europeans with the ECB, but I don’t see it ever gaining universal acceptance as currency. You may remember in 2021 the dictator of El Salvador ordered his people to use Bitcoin and merchants to accept it as legal tender. The economic disruption was so drastic, Salvadorans started torching Bitcoin ATM’s. Gave new meaning to “fire sale” lol. .