Like the original thread, I'm speaking descriptively, not normatively. People believe that in the event of a collapse, Bitcoin's value will rise. The evidence for that is a.) people say exactly that b.) people frequently compare Bitcoin to "digital gold", and gold has similar hedging properties c.) wealthy Bitcoin holders pay large sums of money for custodial services that store their private keys in nuclear-blast-resistant underground bunkers and d.) if they were hoping to cash out in the speculative bubble, they would've given up by now, with the current bear market lasting for nearly 2 years now.
Whether they're correct or not is a different matter, but correctness doesn't bear on their motivation for hodling. Nobody's going to know until the collapse comes or everybody gives up waiting, in which case either they're rich or dead.
Personally I think there's a certain sweet spot magnitude of a collapse where Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency will be useful, and it's where the political and financial system has broken down yet infrastructure remains intact. In other words, you still have power and Internet, but no effective central government. Something like Hong Kong or the Soviet Union but not as serious as Venezuela or Syria. Less than that and people will just use $USD; more than that and guns & food will be more useful than Bitcoin. (I suspect that the same people who are buying lots of Bitcoin are also stocking up on guns & food, too, though.)
Whether they're correct or not is a different matter, but correctness doesn't bear on their motivation for hodling. Nobody's going to know until the collapse comes or everybody gives up waiting, in which case either they're rich or dead.
Personally I think there's a certain sweet spot magnitude of a collapse where Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency will be useful, and it's where the political and financial system has broken down yet infrastructure remains intact. In other words, you still have power and Internet, but no effective central government. Something like Hong Kong or the Soviet Union but not as serious as Venezuela or Syria. Less than that and people will just use $USD; more than that and guns & food will be more useful than Bitcoin. (I suspect that the same people who are buying lots of Bitcoin are also stocking up on guns & food, too, though.)