Why would BTC be involved? Why would anyone choose to use it? I can't see it makes any sense.
But, if you are living in the confines of an backwards/broken/oppressive financial system, runnaway inflation, oppressive restrictions/sanctions, outright kleptocracy then Bitcoin is your sanctuary. It's complicated, risky, slow and tremendously better than what billions of people are dealing with from their local governments/banking systems.
Right now, Bitcoin is ~$1000 more expensive in Vietnam. Demand is higher.
376,246,110 / 23150 = $16,252
Bitcoin seems to be entering that domain, at least in my opinion. Like gold it can't be inflated on a whim, and it's a good reserve store of value that can be stored and sent anywhere in the world much more easily than gold.
There's definitely a vocal subsection of the crypto community that wants to spend BTC or some other cryptocurrency for everything they buy down to a cup of coffee, and FWIW I agree with what you're saying and I also don't understand that line of thinking. It solves no problem for me, buying a cup of coffee in a developed country. But like gold, BTC doesn't need to be used for that purpose to be useful.
And then of course, it's also an alternative store of value for people in other places who can't trust their own government's currency. But I think even this (very real, very useful) use case is dwarfed by its use as a store of value in rich countries which is the largest factor in driving its valuation, since the majority of the world's wealth is held in rich countries.
Some assets like gold or Bitcoin are much harder to create, and so there is no indefinite, limitless increase in supply. This allows them to function better as stores of value than dollars.
See hyperinflation to better understand why some people fear government spending deficits and the spiral of money creation that follows: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hyperinflation.asp
Most people don't really get that Bitcoin is unique in this regard. Literally every other coin has less credibility and more intervention and a shorter history. That's why BTC will be more valuable.
Ex: Facebook is the most valuable social network on the internet. Forking FB's source code and starting my own social network does not mean anyone will use it. FB is valuable because it works, and because users are there.
I'm pretty sure it's not the government that creates most of the money. It's mostly the banks right? When you borrow money, they don't need to go to the government to create the money for that loan in your account.
And this is a mostly a good thing. I know a lot of people think it's not, but what it really does is democratise borrowing. Your ability to borrow money is mostly only limited to your own ability to make regular payments.
A slight inflation also incentivises people to borrow and invest, so it's often good for economic growth.
Maybe it won't be so good in the future when the population and economy starts to shrink consistently. But I'm not convinced that cryptocurrencies is the answer there either.
The power to create money is indeed useful at times. However, there are problems with it that eventually arise over time.
Cryptocurrencies/blockchains simply provide infrastructure outside the control of the government or any single entity. The applications we decide to use with it is ultimately up to us.
We are at historically low interest rates. Equities are at historic P/E multiples in the U.S. and globally. Real Estate is getting more and more expensive compared to generated cashflow. Inflation/Deflation possibilities. Naturally, people are looking at other opportunities or hedges. Allocating portion according to your own situation and believe can make sense.
There also exists an argument on Gold vs BTC: - Gold is hard to transport - Same bar appears on multiple balance sheets - Paper gold ETFs - Price manipulation by central banks and hedge funds - Hardness / How much gold is added yearly - Ability to improve in use through software
Could be a very good collateral, compared to bonds which lose value through inflation.
It's really a personal decision. If you think your money should be elsewhere, then put it elsewhere.
Yeah, this is currently my main reason for thinking the existing cryptocurrencies will not compete with normal currencies. You can't do fractional reserve banking. I know a lot of people think that's a good thing, but I'm not so sure. I like to consider borrowing with a fractional reserve banking system as borrowing from your future self. Mostly, the only barrier to getting a loan is your own ability to make regular payments.
With a cryptocurrency, it feels like you're gonna have to find some old rich dude willing to lend you some money (possibly through a bank, but still..). I have a suspicion that this will lead to many people not being able to buy their own home anymore.. if you have a lot of money, why put it in savings in a bank to be lent out to others to buy homes? Why not buy property and rent it out instead? You'll probably have a higher ROI.
In my view BTC is basically acting like a distributed pyramid scheme. A lot of the money going into it is people "investing" in the currency, and these people will try their best to recruit more people to invest even more money into the scheme so that the first guys can increase the value of the BTCs, and possibly sell out for a profit later. The only difference from an actual pyramid scheme is you don't get money directly from the people you recruit. BTC kind of shuffles the contributions. But once you're bought into BTC you still have very high incentives to hype it up as much as possible, regardless of the actual value of cryptocurrency to society.
I think cryptocurrencies and blockchains in general is incredibly cool. I played around with mining Bitcoin very early on, and I do like the concept. But like many others I've yet to see a single usecase where there's no better alternative to using a blockchain, as long as you have a functioning legal system. If you're doing crime, or living in a failed/corrupt state, or doing something like international bank transfers ... sure. But those cases should hopefully be niche.
Making and losing your first fortune trading Bitcoins should have a similar effect on the retirees of 2050.
Bitcoin seems too abstract to be collectable in that sense
I love Ethereum but think that Bitcoin solves something different.
if you understand and try to work on it you will understand how centrally planned it is becoming and how clunky their nodes are to run and their entire execution is chaos. it is hard to put serious money on something like that but sure you can bet on it ...
I'm okay that its only lead by a few people, that they did a rollback, etc. We are in the earliest days of decentralized infrastructure; laying the foundations for something that can physically last forever is more important following stringent, irreversible protocols. Ethereum as of today has many limitations, but has a chance to literally be THE future of decentralized computing. It's worth trading whatever we have now for a chance at that future.