[john_b]

The critical difference is that Bitcoin is intended to be a currency and not an asset. People use assets to store (and hopefully appreciate) value over time. People use currencies to conduct business and as mediums of exchange.

If you think of or use Bitcoin as an asset, you immediately nullify any comparisons with currencies because the two serve different purposes. You could, in principle, buy a house with, say, 10 cars. But that is not done in practice because the market for asset-to-asset transactions (bartering) is small and illiquid.

If you are willing to ignore Bitcoin's purpose as a currency and only use it as an asset, you need to consider what will drive its value in the long term. For most things, that value is just a function of the supply and the demand. While the supply of Bitcoins is fixed and the demand for items that can be bought in BTC is increasing, what will happen when everyone realizes that BTC is a better asset than currency and stops using it for transactions? It will become illiquid, and illiquid assets only have their tangible value. Since Bitcoin isn't tangible like a house or a car, its tangible value is zero.

For the record, I think Bitcoin has potential, but not with the present economic dynamics.

[nardi]

How you "think of or use" things has no meaning. Everything that is traded, whether "currency" or "asset" has a value that changes over time. Or do you not know that people invest in currencies?