[dnautics]

> If everyone suddenly switched to believing “Oh bitcoin doesn’t do anything but it is a fun collectible which also has mining costs to track ownership” its value would plummet.

That's generally true for all currencies. If everyone suddenly switched to believing "X-sovereign-currency" doesn't do anything but legitimizes that sovereign and has military and human rights costs to maintain the illusion of that legitimacy, its value would plummet.

Currencies are not real, their value is in our collective heads, or at the tip of the gun, or because you can pay taxes in it or get sent to jail. Yes, in general they're nice because it makes transactions less of a pain, but that isn't specifically true for any one currency.

[handmodel]

> their value is in your head, or at the tip of the gun, or because you can pay taxes in it or get sent to jail.

These all seem very real. And not something that will disappear (or even drop) if media attention or nerd interest moves elsewhere.

[paxys]

A lot of "real" currencies – backed by governments with guns – have disappeared in the past, simply because people stopped believing in them.

[matheusmoreira]

Every currency ever created eventually disappeared. Nothing particularly special about them. The only reason people even bothered using them at all was due to government mandate: businesses are required to accept the local currency and taxes can only be paid using it.

Cryptocurrencies exist in a digital and decentralized world. They will outlast governments.

[dnautics]

it's not like currencies haven't died before due to international boycott. And even internally there is a breaking point at which a sovereign that loses the confidence of its people is helpless.

[rawtxapp]

We had other global reserve currencies before USD and they have all lost their reserve status, it can and will happen to USD too, as other countries become more powerful.

[herbst]

To be fair i trust a decentralized monster where millions of people have millions of their money in more than most governments.