[bob33212]

Like a lot of bubbles, there is FOMO and lack of understanding of the technology. It is easy to compare crypto to the internet. When the internet first started out a lot of people didn't invest in GOOG because it was not obvious where the revenue would come from.

People are afraid of making the same mistake here as well. "I don't know how BTC will generate cashflow outside of being a Ponzi scheme, but I assume the technology will advance and revolutionize finance" so they buy.

[api]

GOOG was a good investment because nobody invested in it. If everyone had invested in GOOG, it would not have been as good an investment since its success would already be priced in.

If the number has already gone up, you are too late. If everyone is talking about it, you are too late.

[gonehome]

I don't know what BTC will do, but this is a banality and mostly wrong in any way that's important.

"The number has gone up" for Google almost since it has gone public.

If you bought BTC at $1 and it went to $10 - is $10 too late? The number went up.

The hard part is it's hard to know the underlying value of things and a lot of value is socially determined by how others value something.

Why is gold traded as an expensive commodity? It has some tiny practical uses, but is that why the price fluctuates? People trade it because they think other people will trade it and use it as a store of value when other stuff is volatile.

Some people think BTC's scarcity guarantees provide a similar digital version of that. It's volatile now because it's still early and uncertain, but if that's true then BTC's price could be very high and it's hard to know if you're too late.

For other Non-BTC coins unlikely to get the same level of social buy-in their value is a lot more questionable imo. ETH has some real underlying applications (uniswap decentralized exchange, powering contracts, other tokens etc.). The privacy coins maybe can leverage that for a reason for people to use them. The others seem like even more fringe bets and more likely to be FOMO bubbles.

[tolbish]

That's what everyone thought about Bitcoin back when it hit the crazy high of $800.

[randomopining]

The function that BTC provides is a deflationary hedge. If you look at the big existing things for that, gold and silver etc... check out their market cap and you see btc has a ways more to go.