Well there you go.

My son has said similar things to you about Bitcoin quite a while ago.

People don't realise how big it is getting, but Strike, the Bitcoin payments platform (also called the lightning network) is being integrated into the biggest retail vendor platforms in the world, like Shopify, Paypal, Square and others.

El Salvador made Bitcoin it's legal currency last year (alongside the US dollar) and now Mexico is thinking about doing the same thing. No one wants to be beholden to the US dollar anymore because they can just freeze and seize all of your reserves. That is not possible with Bitcoin because no owns Bitcoin. It's literally global, and Bitcoin transactions are peer to peer without intermediaries such as Banks or the Swift Messaging system.

It's going to happen pretty quickly that countries will hodl bitcoin like gold reserves and declare it as a national currency, and now that the big retail platforms and payment services are integrating with Lightning, bitcoin is becoming more mainstream as a common global currency - beyond any border as any one country's money.

This will, in the long term, make Bitcoin the global reserve. No one wants another country's money to control their energy, and be subjected to sanctions just because the USA can. The old way simply cannot win this. People now know Bitcoin is safe, reliable, fair, and treats everyone the same no matter what.

This means all the people that the banks oppress by denying access to financial services can participate Global economy. I can send my family coin anywhere in the world by touching my phone. They do not need a bank account - but Bitcoin can;t just be spent anywhere - yet - though that is coming fast.

If something 'happens', does Bitcoin have a telephone number and/or website so a resolution to the problem can be worked out?

It's a decentralised system, so there is no 'person in charge' you can call, but that's by design as you don't need a trusted third party or permission to make transaction - no one can freeze your Bitcoin wallet or sanction your Bitcoin or stop you from sending/receiving Bitcoin.

So what can a person do if their Bitcoin gets 'stolen'?
Who do you contact to retrieve your crypto wallet password?

You have your own wallet and no one can steal from it unless they have your private key. If someone does get your key and steals your BTC, there is no way of retrieving it, so never give anyone your key. If you forget your key, you can not get your Bitcoin, so make sure you don't forget it and keep it very secure. There is no one to call if things go wrong. People do risky things with coins like use bridges or leave them on exchanges. These can be hacked and they often are, so don't do that. Only send coins to an exchange to sell them. Usually we'd send a bunch of cash to an exchange account and buy USDC (stablecoin) which we can then secure in our wallet. If we want fiat cash, we sell coins on an exchange and withdraw to a normal bank account.

Just a couple of latest developments. Two more small countries after El Salvador have adopted Bitcoin as legal tender (Hondurus and The Central African Republic), and The City of Fort Worth Texas has started Bitcoin mining (pilot project of just 3 ant mining machines).

There are several 3rd world countries considering making Bitcoin legal tender, so we are going to see many more over the years.

The Media is reporting Fort Worth as 'the first city government in the United States to mine bitcoin', which strongly implies it won't be the last.

No doubt, Bitcoin is on track to becoming embedded within government and industry. Just my opinion, but everyone really should own just a bit of Bitcoin at, like, 1% of net worth or something.

What is the carbon foot print for mining only once, just one Bit Coin transaction?

How much energy would it take if all financial transactions were done by BitCoin?

And, is there enough energy available now to do that?

The way they are setting it up nowdays is they build a layer on top of the Bitcoin network that can do lots of transactions, and they just do a few huge transactions on the Bitcoin network itself. But, it's still energy intensive.

My belief is the Bitcoin industry is a direct function of electricity cost. If electricity is expensive the miners make less profit at a given price of Bitcoin. I also believe energy companies will become the miners in the future and utilise excesses which are either burnt off flares at oil rigs or excess energy from baseload on the grid. I mean, it just makes sense if they can make more money from what they currently waste, why the hell wouldn't they? Those that do will have a comptitive edge. Energy suppliers could price out current miners and capture market share pretty easily because by utilising waste their cost of energy is effectively zero (they effectively only have cap ex costs). If you think about it, how can it not happen?

When it does, the price of Bitcoin will tie in directly to energy market competition, so it's not all that unlikely that it might become the 'energy currency' in the future. That would make Bitcoin the global reserve, and since the USD is already losing grip on that monopoly (The US can't sustain the trade deficits which are necessary) and no other country is capable of running as a reserve, there does have to be some sort of stable global currency for international energy/commodity trade. Since Bitcoin has no nationalistic ties, has completely stable and predictable inflation, and is likely to be tied into energy supply chains, it's actually a pretty good contender for the role.