Taleb has a paper arguing Bitcoins expected long term value is infact 0: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.14204
One should be vary careful about not conflating Crypto as a whole and Bitcoin. I agree with Taleb on the assessment of Bitcoins, but I think we need to wait a couple of years before we can assess the success of Crypto as a whole.
I honestly don't know but I am leaning towards no. The lightning story could in theory result in a "happy end" but I haven't seen any real successes or at least I am not being made aware of them. After all, El Salvador isn't the success story that everyone hoped for.
That's a fine question too and I would argue that it doesn't help the real world economy. It just consumes energy for 0 utility except to facilitate ponzi schemes and money laundering
He's saying that a rational market should value bitcoin at 0 because it has 0 utility. If I buy shares in Walmart I receive a dividend, if I buy shares in Amazon I know they will do share buy backs with their profits and hence increase the value of my investment.
Bitcoin has zero value or utility for me, unless I can sell it to someone else before it eventually goes to 0.