You can transfer it nearly instantly. The volatility is driven by traders and speculators, but number of holders has steadily increased over time. It won't go to zero anytime soon and demand had increased over time

There are long-term risks around monetary policy conflicting with the cost of security. The security of Bitcoin is dependent upon the price of Bitcoin going up. If it costs too much for miners to run their miners to secure the network, security of Bitcoin would be at risk. Rogue miners could take over the network and destroy Bitcoin value.

This could be changed by a an adjustment to monetary policy with a move over to hard fork, but I am not sure the community would be supportive of the change.