Thanks, great post. I've not been tempted by crypto before but I'd probably use Monero if I did, from what I've read about it.
Crypto needs mainstream adoption and coins like Bitcoin are just a waste of time, pretty much useless for any day to day commerce.
yes but right now it's v. integral and interconnected with all other coins. it's the daddy, and for trading purposes all prices react to the price of bitcoin. This may change, but even as a store of value it looks likely to stick around. There is also some development going on.
Bitcoin is in my opinion not useless maybe it's not that great anymore to use for day to day commerce but it's still the number one coin without BTC and it's blockchain there would be no other cryptos. BTC is awesome to hold and sell when the right price is reached.
I don´t think Bitcoin has ever been brought as a new day-to-day currency. It should be the new gold, which we use to weigh currencies against. Bitcoin is needed in order to buy other crypto currencies. Graphs also show a similar growth to gold. You should not invest in the next coin because that will be a stable value. You should invest in the next gold/Silver/platinum.
How about gold bars, waste of time? Bitcoin is a store of value.
Becoming a means of exchange is the battle you're referring to, and it's being fought now by many but certainly not all of these cryptocurrencies.
I personally don't like this association with Gold, people saying that 'Bitcoin is virtual Gold'. It's nothing like gold at all despite the futile attempts to shoehorn gold related language into it.
Gold is tangible, it has a real world purpose. We use it in everything from industry, electronics to jewelry, dentistry etc. It's a rare commodity that's hard to extract, that's where it's value is.
Where is the value in Bitcoin ? It's completely made up. The price means nothing at all, it doesn't represent anything. You can't even use it for anything except 'storing wealth'. And how's that working out for everyone at the moment ?
Monero, or something similar that can be used in the real world, has a chance of being adopted at least and made worthwhile.
And why should the price of any coin be tagged to Bitcoin in the first place ? That's as ridiculous as saying the price of USD has gone down, so I better sell all my Yen. In fact it should be the opposite, Bitcoin should be falling as investors pull their money out of it and put it into other currencies which are increasing.
Sorry for the rant, just my own feelings on crypto, nothing personal :-)