| * Is it a currency or an investment? None of the major coins seem usable as a currency to me, the values are too volatile. More of an investment, for the time being. * What does it offer me over using USD? For me at least I see very little value, I often cannot use it for purchases and most of the places that I have seen it offered do it for secrecy, VPN or counterfeit goods. I am not trying to perpetuate the idea that cryto is only used for illegal activities but for myself I have little to no benefit of using it for purchases. Yes, I've purchased like one thing with crypto and that was back when you couldn't buy hardware wallets with USD, so crypto was the only option. * Would you compare your "store of value" use case the same as owning gold? It is interesting to hear coins having a store of value since for me at least the volatility kills it and without a huge use in the economy I don't have confidence in it holding up. Yes, I do compare the store of value use case similar to owning gold. Gold is just much harder to transport, send across the world, store, etc. Gold has also been trading sideways for about a year, so I don't think it really protects from inflation (someone correct me if I'm mistaken about that). I actually do own both gold and crypto, so I've been able to compare them first hand. Also, crypto is super volatile, for sure, but if you think about it over a multi-year horizon, similar to how someone would invest in an S&P 500 index fund, then I think crypto will in general appreciate and the volatility should go down as more people hold it and consider it valuable. The idea is that it stabilizes as its market cap goes up. Also just want to call out that I consider Bitcoin its own thing, apart from the rest of crypto, since Bitcoin actually has a max supply cap. Many cryptocurrencies do not (they can essentially print money), or their max supply is so ridiculously high as to barely matter at all. Thanks for responding! I like to hear about how people are thinking about this, beyond the point that it's only used for illicit activities. |