[suraci]

> Stocks give you a legal right to the assets and future profits of a company - a legal right enforced by the government (i.e. men with guns).

Financial derivatives such as options would be a better analogy, although I don't think anyone is currently buying stocks for the reason you mentioned.

Additionally, BTC and gold have fundamental differences, i talked abt it here and in other comments

[EugeneG]

Financial derivatives like a call option have a value derived from a stock (which is a real thing that gives real world legal claims on actual assets/profits). So it’s still not like a crypto coin.

People are most definitely buying stocks for the reason I mentioned. There’s a reason why the pension fund of the teachers of California, the pension fund of the teachers of Texas, and your 401k holds stocks. It’s not because they are collectibles with a lot of hype. It’s because they get a claim on future profits at (expected to be, on average, over the long run) a discount. Of course there are people who have no clue what they’re buying or why it works and just buy something… but that doesn’t mean the thing they’re buying doesn’t have a fundamental value connected to reality.