A stock share is partial ownership of a for-profit venture for gain. Bitcoin is more akin to a precious metal or commodity, except that btc doesn't have any utility value like gold, silver or copper do.
Stocks pay dividends and entitle the owner to certain rights. Btc gives you some crypto that others trust.
Gold, platinum, silver and copper all have use in electronics manufacturing and jewelry. Platinum is used in catalytic converters for exhaust treatment. They are very useful.
Btc is actually a detriment to the environment without any real utility. The evidence of work algorithms burn fossil fuels and add CO2 and other pollution into the atmosphere, and at the end of the day, all you have is a bunch of useless 1s and 0s that we attribute with value that are incapable of doing anything other than represent a finite portion of a really complex math problem that we attribute value to.
> Gold, platinum, silver and copper all have use in electronics manufacturing and jewelry.
From my understanding their "actual value" is massively inflated through a similar monopoly as De Beers for diamonds (except it's China as opposed to a single company).
I agree that BTC is a massive determent to the environment and so on, but rare earth mining isn't a picnic either. While all of those materials do have practical uses, their perceived value is massively over-inflated.
The thing I love about bitcoin is that a $500 swing in a single day (or hour) is completely normal and par for the course. Sort of amusing in how ridiculous it is.
i don't think its crashed at all in the last 8 months. we've seen some shakeups, sure. But I can think of two crashes in the entire history of bitcoin.
June 2011. from 30 down to under $1, and Feb 2014 when MtGox finally imploded.
These last few have been sell offs and market manipulation which only lasted a few days.