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Comment by x87678r | Hacker News Reader

I understand money, inflation and finance very well. I understand that BTC has limited supply. In 10 years why would anyone want BTC though? Why would I want to buy it when I could buy BTC2 or whatever else? Its like yes there is a limited supply, but there is unlimited supply of cryptocurrencies, why is BTC more valuable than the others?

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Because Bitcoin is credibly scarce. In 10 years, Bitcoin will have 20+ years of history behind it. Your BTC2 will be much younger, probably have had a creator, a foundation that directs where it goes, possibly changed the proof-of-work and supply schedule a few times and possibly picked winners and loser on their ecosystem. In other words, your other currency won't be that different than normal fiat money.

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.

You could spin up your own Bitcoin fork in an afternoon. The difference between Bitcoin and x87678rCoin is confidence. No one knows or cares about x87678rCoin. x87678rCoin has no track record or evidence that it will be maintained and supported by any ecosystem in the long run. Until x87678rCoin proves itself, it is contributing nothing to the supply of cryptocurrencies. Zero.

The existence of a cryptocurrency does not give it value. Its network gives it value (users, wallets, hardware, aka usage and adoption).

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.

Was initially my argument against bitcoin also. The flaw in this reasoning imo is the power law distribution of attention. Bitcoin and Ethereum get the vast majority of the attention (and hence trade volume). Everything else pales in comparison.

because it was first and has proven itself to be both immutable and highly secure. this leads to network effects. and money is the ultimate network effect. people want money because they know others want money and will therefore accept it in exchange for other things.

No one would use a Model T as a car, but if you had one in mint condition a collector would pay a lot for it.

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