If the world is to flee into a digital asset, Bitcoin just isn’t going to cut it. Bitcoin is difficult to transact. It’s difficult to trade without a third party taking custody. Mining is energy intensive and physical centralized. It hardly suffices for that role at this time.

Yet it has the most memetic value to replace USD, so far

Definitely. But can’t functionally do it.

I’m talking more of a Balaji collapse situation. Like the world won’t wait for LN to ship.

Disagree. Crypto likes to build before use cases. Here, if btc actually becomes “money” the incentive to innovate will get LN Labs (et al) off their ass and actually ship. It’s possible.