Furthermore, they assume that Bitcoin will follow "the adoption trends of other broadly used technologies", which is unlikely to happen. Even the cryptocommunity is starting to accept that Bitcoin has effectively failed as a payment network.
Bitcoin has value because people want it. People want it because they predict it will increase in value. They predict it will increase in value because it increased in the past.
I have no idea if or when that circle will break but I can't believe that it will last I definitely.
I'd assume at this point people want it as a hedge against inflation tbh. So people want it so their fiat money won't decrease in value is more accurate.
I thought it was more of a crypto lottery frankly. A whole bunch of people started buying it and it's become like this gigantic game of chicken, where you don't want to be left holding worthless BTC.
If we hadn't just had lots of institutional money moving into Bitcoin within the last year (see https://bitcointreasuries.org) I'd be inclined to agree.
However I don't think institutions of this size and nature buy millions of dollars worth without some sort of analysis and strategy.
who knows what those biggies do, I'm sure they don't publish their moves out in the open like this nor do I think they hold actual coin. They're probably just holding option positions on CBOE and CME.
> Bitcoin has effectively failed as a payment network.
To fail, all of the 2nd layer networks have to fail, and it has to keep its position of a store of value, keeping transaction costs out of reach of regular folk.
If tomorrow there was a big price crash back to $1, and all transactions dried up, it would have a 2nd shot at being a payment network.
I don't have proof for the larger community but I was very interested in bitcoin at 2012-2015 and it really did seem like it was going to be a real alternative, all the big companies were starting to accept bitcoin but now its all gone.
Almost nowhere accepts bitcoin anymore because they failed to solve the issue that transactions cost on the level of dollars to process so its only useful as a speculative investment and not a practical currency.
In hindsight it makes a lot of sense. The cost of a transaction for Bitcoin is always going to be higher than just updating a value in Visa’s database. Visa may have some increased costs due to consumer protections, but consumers are pretty clearly willing to shoulder the cost.
I have never heard of Cardano and Ethereum seemed to market itself as a way to run the internet and government inside of blockchain while the reality was it was never used for anything but speculative investment.
Cryptos have basically burned the idea and the general public will probably not care of any future solution since all of the previous ones were scams or not very useful.
These cryptos all promise the world and deliver nothing.
For example, Uniswap is a decentralized exchange living on top of Ethereum that frequently has volume higher than Coinbase. A couple years ago that was the "end vision". Now it's an everyday reality.
Loans, mutual fund like assets, lending etc. The ecosystem is booming.
If everyone else is getting the same dozen daily scam emails related to Ethereum that I am, I'd have to assume that it has irreparably harmed the currency's reputation.
The price surge we're seeing and have seen. More and more people are holding BTC like gold, so when the value rises their pockets get fatter. Not for any payment, just investment.
I even see it myself, and I don't speak for anyone in that community. I bought some BTC ~4 years ago to buy something and did the math on current value. It's kind of shocking.
