[danuker]

> The main value proposition is to sell to the next person for more than you paid.

I agree. But I genuinely believe "bagholders" will be better off compared to saving in their own national currency - provided they manage their risk correctly.

This is because national currencies keep inflating, so even a decreasing demand might maintain the same price, given the supply inflation difference.

Since the pandemic, BTC has acted like the S&P500 with 4x leverage, but no margin calls (loss limited to what you invested).

[cyphar]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory

[danuker]

This has held for over a century in the case of gold, since the USD kept readjusting its peg and eventually suspending convertibility.

https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-...

[cyphar]

So what you're saying with that example is that even with the backing of many governments that have a vested interest in doing anything to stop the bubble from bursting (something Bitcoin doesn't have), the greater fool theory ultimately was correct in that eventually the bubble burst? (I don't agree that the USD-Gold peg was an example of greater fool theory, just an example of how pegging your currency to gold as a sovereign government with a central bank is not a reasonable way of doing monetary policy. The gold standard is an outlier in the human history of monetary policy, the only reason it's so notable to us today is because it was in use during the development of modern economics.)

Cryptocurrencies do not produce anything and any actual transactions done using them (as opposed to speculative trading) are a rounding error even after more than a decade. There is no mechanism for them to be anything other than a complicated greater fool scam because ultimately the only way you can make money from them is if you can sell them to someone else for more money than you bought them for -- which is what a greater fool scam is.

[minsc_and_boo]

USD dropped the gold standard almost a century ago. How is your comment relevant to the greater fool theory and crypto today?

[automatic6131]

>This is because national currencies keep inflating Now consider the (dominating) 2nd order effect that the price of the "bag" was inflated by leverage and speculation.

Definitely worse than most national currencies outside of select countries.

[danuker]

Speculation is healthy in a market. For example, futures contracts let farmers hedge themselves against bad weather.

But I think leverage is insane with the volatility of the cryptocurrency market.

[SantalBlush]

The inflation rate in bitcoin over the last 6 months has eclipsed the inflation of $USD. Anyone who got paid in $BTC these past few months lost more than 50% of their earnings. Nobody is interested in that.