Ethereum’s ETH token, for example, is an asset that will appreciate if demand of the Ethereum network increases for real-world business applications (not just financial payments). That makes it much more like investing in a limited resource (ex: oil) that will go up in value.
It’s still speculating, but most stock investments are close enough to speculation that you can’t really tell the difference.
Gold (and commodities more generally) have fundamentals - just different ones from equities. You can't take advantage of the universe of sound investment opportunities if you restrict your attention to equities.
So I guess the point I'm making is that often a lot of gold makes sense too.
Investing in profitable companies by itself does not generate above average returns. Only 1 of the original companies of the Dow Jones is still in it today, G.E. and it's performance as investment has been below average the past 20 years.
Small companies become bigger, driving returns. That's why you don't just buy the DJIA but rather index the whole market. Of course there will be turnover - the point isn't to lock into any one stock - don't look for the needle, buy the haystack (i.e. a broader-market index).
If you want to include crypto in the haystack, sure, fine, whatever, but at market weights, it's going to be a very small portion of the investable market of stocks, bonds, cash and other asset classes. At some point, it's enough to just keep it simple and broad. A fraction of percent of this or that won't make or break a diversified portfolio.
The thing not many people seem to talk about is that the 20th century had unprecedented growth in terms of population around the world (which has slowed significantly in the last few decades, although the effects usually lag by quite a bit - when the children enter the workforce and such). We're making up for some of it with technological progress, but ultimately what impact that makes is up to everyone to think about individually (look at Japan as a potential leading indicator of what demographic change can do).
Not always, tons of companies are losing money but the share price goes up.
What about staking? In this case, you're providing a service to the network and being compensated for it.
This is literally anything economic on planet Earth.
>So far that has never been an issue for people investing in the global stock market
the global stock market is at its highest valuation ever, good luck with that. I'll keep buying Ethereum