Just looking back at this article. The author does a great job stirring up the debate. I think the author misses many of the key points:
The argument that if "everyone said 'I want to buy 1 share of Amazon' the stock would go immensely higher" I does not mean its a pyramid scheme it just means people want to buy Amazon or 'Bitcoin'.
You say "It is too inefficient to use as a currency". Bitcoin is a layer 1 solution. In time layer 2 and layer 3 solutions will be built on top of it. TCP/IP was invented ~50 years ago and at first it was just a basic 'layer 1' idea (all it did was send packets of information between computers). Only when layer 2 solutions were build (HTTP and the World Wide Web, or SMTP and email), did we realize the true power of what TCP/IP was about to do. Bitcoin offers similar potential that we probably cannot realize.
Golds value coming from jewelry or industrial uses (I know you don't reference industrial uses), probably accounts for ~3% of Gold's value. Bitcoin potentially is far more efficient and advantageous versus gold (lower storage costs, divisible into 100,000,000 units, more scarce as there will only be 21,000,000 Bitcoins, vs. an estimated 5,950,000,000 ounces of gold, programmable, the list continues) If Gold has a $12 trillion market cap, there is a possibility Bitcoin could exceed this if it truly is superior.
Interesting article on what you see as a potential pyramid scheme. To me, I see something backed only by math and not a potentially corrupt, controlling entity. In countries such as Argentina, where the currency has been debased by the government many times, Bitcoin offers a reasonable potential alternative. Even in the United States of America, the Central Bank can inject a few trillions of 'out of thin air money' into the system to try to stimulate it from Covid effects. A senior citizen reliant on fixed income might get punished from diluted money (not suggesting senior citizens should put their money in Bitcoin)
again - I appreciate the article and it was a good read :)