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Comment by feyes | Hacker News Reader

Yea this is what decriers don't explain. I may not view at as a strong currency for which it was intended but it's undeniable it has become a store for speculative value that isn't going away anytime soon.

There's a lot of trash in the crypto world but also some valid projects.

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I don't know how you equate "speculative value" with "valid projects". Bitcoin has value because people are long on crypto. "Long" has an end date - just because it's 50 years instead of 10 years doesn't mean it's not coming.

If there's less crypto being issued than fiat, and demand were constant as a % of people's wealth (which I admit is a big if), then crypto is bound to go up.

There is no end date to government currency debasement.

This is to say that if demand outpaces supply, price is going to go up. However, this is true of any asset. So why mention specifically 'crypto', as if there was something magical about 'crypto' that means it's bound to go up?

My point is yes, it is true of any asset. You might as well own cans of beans. But the purpose is to stave off the effects of monetary expansion while staying liquid. Cryptocurrency is in a special niche in that parameter space.

While other assets are bound to provide long-term returns greater than inflation (for example, stocks and bonds [1]), cryptocurrency can not surpass inflation long-term, but it still does so while demand is growing. In addition, even after it reaches a stable demand (which I reckon will be in 5-10 years, with market saturation), it will be a means of diversification (like gold is currently).

[1] - https://totalrealreturns.com/

I don't think I'm following you. You're using technical terms such as 'parameter space' in the wrong context. Maybe you want to sound clever, but you aren't making a lot of sense.

Except gold has value. Crypto does not.

Well yes - but the assumption is that demand will drop as more people realize crypto has no long term viability as real financial infrastructure.

The supply of crypto isn't limited because people can just mint new chains. And of course, the more the number goes up on a chain the less attractive it is to actual users as opposed to holders.

> The supply of crypto isn't limited because people can just mint new chains.

It is silly to lump all crypto coins in a single bucket. BTC is very different than DOGE or SHIB. I guess your parent post was about BTC supply being limited.

Interesting you say that, because it's actually very similar to Doge (though of course, dissimilar to Shib, because shib is an ERC20 token on Ethereum)

So you also think that The Starry Night in MOMA is worthless because you can buy a very similar one on Etsy for $65? https://www.etsy.com/listing/1317189452/starry-night-by-vinc...

I didn't say they were similar value, this is a strawman.

But if we're looking at art, and you show me the original Starry night, a print, and then a picture of the kool-aid man busting through a wall, and ask me which 2 are most similar, I'm going to pick the starry nights

> I didn't say they were similar value, this is a strawman.

You actually said that - "Interesting you say that, because it's actually very similar to Doge". Especially when the context was about the value of crypto in relation to supply and demand. Given that you are familiar with SHIB being an ERC20, I am fairly certain you are aware of DOGE's supply being nothing like BTC. And yet you conflate the two. Just for FUD?

Network effects dictate that value concentrates in the most popular chains. The top few will always dominate.

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