Whatever alternatives may arise, the one that will be "most valuable" is the one that everyone thinks everyone else will want.
Whatever alternatives may arise, the one that will be "most valuable" is the one that everyone thinks everyone else will want.
For sure, but until now, gold has not faced an alternative that beat it on a number of objective measures (portability, divisibility, scarcity, durability) so now we get to see the experimental result of what happens over time when there's an alternative that better meets the core use-cases that made it a good choice to a store of value.
Bitcoins have a base level of desirability even without currency use. They offer the ability to write (transact) on a public globally distributed time stamped, unforgeable verified data store.
The blockchain's a perfect place to store the hash of a document, for example, to prove it's existence as of a certain date.
So aside from some nice properties, it's like the 'original bitcoin'. We really don't need another.
Plus you can buy it in China and sell it in Brazil all within 30 minutes.
> We really don't need another
You are saying that you don't need another. But, among others, a million Chinese do and beg to differ here.