[JonnyNova]

Bitcoin has fundamentals though. Per the whitepaper it was designed to be just a means for individuals to transfer money to each other digitally without much friction. The further it gets from that the more we're asking the network to stretch to meet demands it was never designed to.

[exelius]

This only works if the value of BTC is pegged to one or more fiat currencies. As it is, people are basically speculating on blockchain address space on BTC.

[wallace_f]

And looking at this fundamental value, other cryptocurrencies have arguable superceded it in terms of better tech/efficiency, so the value seems incredibly hard to justify.

[piyush_soni]

Just curious, which ones in your opinion are better tech/efficiency?

[wlib]

Look into DASH, it has a fundamentally different architecture than bitcoin. The biggest pros are instantSend, privateSend, and the DAO (A governance system).

[wallace_f]

In addition to the other response, another example is ethereum's ability to offer smart contracts, which is not possible with bitcoin. Transaction rate limits and power consumption also are more efficiently handled.

They're different, which is why I used the term arguable--there's no clear reason afaik that bitcoin should be so valued relative to others, but I could be wrong.

[piyush_soni]

One reason of bitcoin possibly being more valued would be its cap at 21 million (which AFAIK is not there with Ethereum)