It's evident that alternative store-of-value is >90% of the demand driver for the crypto industry, and arguably the only demand driver for its dominant asset - BTC. 

Yet, it seems there's very little investment in improving this dominant usecase and biggest success story. BTC remains a ticking time bomb, and aside from BTC & ETH, most crypto assets are high inflation dumpsters (literally, for VCs).

I think the demand for alternative store-of-value in the crypto industry can actually be divided into two categories, much like in the traditional financial system. On one hand, you have an asset similar to gold, which is Bitcoin (BTC) — a "digital gold" serving as a store-of-value with limited use beyond that. On the other hand, there are assets more analogous to a national or community currency, like the US dollar, and in crypto, this would be Ethereum, Solana, or even Telegram's ecosystem. 

While it may seem unlikely now, I believe that Bitcoin, in the worst-case scenario, could adopt alternatives to Proof of Work (PoW) if its sustainability issues become more critical. When the issues become undeniable, we can be sure that alternative solutions will emerge, potentially in the form of forks that offer more sustainable consensus mechanisms or other improvements to address these challenges.