[waytogo]

> It is becoming exponentially more difficult to mine them, and there is only a finite number of bitcoins in that can be mined.

This was planned and one of the greatest features (for a store of value): Limited supply. With limited supply you won't have inflation but deflation which is good for storing value but not good if you want to use it as a cash system. But for p2p cash use cases newer system like Stellar/XLM which integrate controlled inflation (1%/yr) are better.

> Buying bitcoins is making these 2000 people richer.

Guess you are confusing matters. Running a local wallet as a full node doesn't mean you make tons of money. You can run 20 nodes but your friend who is BTC trader could still have 100 times more BTC than you (so, running a node != holding a shitload of BTC).

> Actually I don't understand anyone that puts money in a cryptocurrency that is supposed to have "intrinsic value".

From another post: Bitcoin is a store of value. Moreover, it's one with a high liquidity, strong brand, limited supply, available in 180 countries, without banks involved and super reliable (gold doesn't have that features and please show me any other asset that has these features). So, it has a use and value.

[halamadrid]

Please don’t compare gold with bitcoin and make bitcoin look good.

How is bitcoin super reliable? Someone could buy it for 20k$ and next thing he is getting only 5k$ for it because of a crash. Or someone has hacked the exchange and it’s all gone.

How can it ever be reliable?

[waytogo]

I mean technically reliable.

(Really) everybody knows that you should not keep your money on an exchange.

Gold can also crash and btw is a volatile asset as well.