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Comment by Stagnant | Hacker News Reader

>First it was supposed to be a currency

>Then it was an asset that can only go up

>Then it was an inflation hedge that would keep you up when markets went down

All of these are just random narratives that you sometimes see being pushed on reddit or twitter. No credible person would make the last two claims.

I get it, shitting on crypto has become hip especially in the last couple of years. But it doesn't change the fact that the general trend for bitcoin has been a steady increase in value, and given how much money is currently being invested to crypto adjacent businesses I don't see the trend changing anytime soon.

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So can you tell us what the use case is? Because I've been watching for far longer than the last couple of years, and I've seen those three narratives being pushed exactly as GP described. If there's someone credible who knows, they're not making themselves heard and it's certainly not clear to me right now what it's for if not those.

> I get it, shitting on crypto has become hip

To be honest if GP was trying to shit on crypto they would've mentioned the ridiculous NFT craze and multitude of shitcoin grifts of the last few years. They're being very charitable by sticking to some very simple things.

> the general trend for bitcoin has been a steady increase in value

There has been nothing steady about Bitcoin's value, wild swings up and down are the norm. I mean if you look at the exchange rate to an actual currency 10 years ago vs today then pretend nothing happened in between, then yes that's a nice steady rate of growth. However that would be ignoring multiple huge, sudden spikes and falls that have happened during this period.

There is no usecase just look at RAI or maybe the unlaunched Nuon, they are cryptocurrencies that try to minimize volatility. That turns the rest of the ecosystems into a bad joke. The point of these cryptocurrencies is to beat the central banks at their own game.

No use case, got it

This sounds like 'whelp the bubble hasn't popped yet, and it'll probably keep going up for a bit'.

Not exactly the reassuring defense of crypto.

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