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Originally Posted by The Porn Nerd
Well you bring up several interesting factors. First off, the only people who care about whether something is 'useful" or "works" are the geeks. The average person knows and cares not about the technology. I have no idea how aeronautics works but I know Boeing is a good investment. 
This is why Bitcoin is worth 20x or so what Ethereum is worth. That should tell you something. In other words, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average person.
Having said all that, 'value" is what we place on it. What you said in the beginning could be applied to gold as well. Gold is just a metal, after all. But it is its' scarcity, difficulty to mine/acquire and shiny brilliance that makes us humans attach value TO IT. It has no inherent value except for certain scientific uses etc.
My point? Once enough people/institutions/governments adopt block chain technology Bitcoin - and perhaps a handful of others - will become "legitimate". In the next decade or so everything will be digital anyway. Crypto will be just another option to pay or investment to buy on an exchange. |
Should be pointed out that, by market cap, Bitcoin is less than 3x as valuable as Ethereum.
On a fundamental level you're obviously right; 'value' is what we place on it. But compare Bitcoin, Boeing stock, and gold: They have different intrinsic properties. Boeing stock entitles me to voting rights and dividends in a multinational corporation. Gold is used to make jewelry, electronics, and a variety of other things. Bitcoin enables instant, anonymous online payment, across borders.
The problem is that governments have a vested interest in NOT allowing that. The #1 reason you'd want to use bitcoin (beyond speculation) is because you are doing something illegal and don't want the government to know about it.
Governments can shut down fiat-crypto exchanges any time they want (india just did it), and if they do, the only way you can trade fiat-crypto is by meeting shady people in person and exchanging cash. Fuck everything about that.
That's why for investment I prefer the utility tokens. They have a value beyond enabling something governments don't want. Some day I think we'll be hosting our websites on decentralized cloud infrastructure backed by blockchain. Shit will be lit.