Hey Cryptoinvestor,
I obviously have a fundamentally different perspective on cryptocurrency values and investments -> am I wrong with this?
I don't understand this "value" idea of a cryptocurrency coin at all. I frequently hear that you always should compare the value of a coin to the value of the company or technology behind it. That doesn't make sense to me at all. Why would some bytes in a blockchain have a value?
Sure, the crypto technology has a value, and it's social impact has a value, and replacing the corrupt and centralized banking system has a value. Each of these values are unpayable and impossible to attach a number in dollars to. But I don't see any connection between these values and the value of a distinct crypto coin.
My perspective on investments in crypto is quite different. I see cryptos in 5 categories:
1.) Store of value / Bitcoin:
Bitcoin currently has a special position since it's seen as the "gold in cryptocurrency".
So I see it more like a warehouse, which is technically extremely secure against theft or damage and not even a government can prevent you from accessing it.
And it has a special "communistic" principle on top: When you store your valuables in it, you own a fixed share of the content of the whole warehouse. And when others store their valuables in the warehouse as well, the value of the whole content increases, and thus the value of your own share increases. This is nice as long as the total value in the warehouse is more than at the moment when you deposited your valuables.
So the warehouse "Bitcoin" itself has no value (apart from it's security feature), but it's contents do.
So I'm not bringing my valuables to the warehouse, because I want to pay for the value of the warehouse - I bring them there, because my valuables are so (technically) safe there and because I hope my share will be more worth when I withdraw it again.
So the question, how much one Bitcoin is worth because of Bitcoin's value in technology or social impact doesn't make sense to me at all. It's just the amount of valuables stored in the Bitcoin-warehouse divided by the current supply of 17mill coins. (Ok, in reality it's the BTC-value the people believe it, but this belief is constructed from the above calculation.)
Many people are outraged about the idea, that 1 BTC could reach the exchange value of 100k or 1mill Dollars, because Bitcoin would not "be worth" that. What a nonsense way of thinking! It's just a number, and just calculated from the values stored in Bitcoin divided by the number of coins. Explained another way: If 1 BTC is 1mill $, then 1 Satoshi is 1 Cent. Thinking in Satoshies suddenly dissolves the problem in those people's heads?
Through the big capitalization of Bitcoin, this currency probably is the sort of safest and most stable one of all cryptocurrencies.
This stability is also the most important requirement to turn it into a real payment currency.
But to achieve this goal, it even needs much much more capitalization for stability (the 1mill-$ BTC would be extremely healthy for that), and the lightning network for cheap/fast transactions.
There is just one really bad issue about Bitcoin, which is the crazy mining energy consumption. This really gives me headaches when dealing with that topic. I really hope, there will be a technical solution as soon as possible.
About that bubble-to-pop idea: Nobody is considering the idea, that it may become more and more stable through it's increasing capitalization and the world payment currency and that the rise becomes slower and slower and eventually just sort of stabilizes at a certain range. Why does everyone just think in apocalypses?
2.) Store of private value:
Private coins I also see as a store of value like Bitcoin, with less of the stability through the big capitalization, but with the additional feature of privacy instead.
I could imagine, that a lot of super rich people who currently store their values offshore or in swiss number accounts will more and more switch to private coins, avoiding the risk of third party issues or whistleblowers.
So this will probably extremely increase their exchange value in the future.
3.) Masternode and Proof of Stake currencies:
An investment in such currencies somehow makes sense, since their coins increase their amounts if you hold them on a masternode server or a 24/7 online stake wallet.
But this just works if the currency doesn't lose more in it's exchange value than you earn from it's coin amount increase.
4.) Stock replacement:
There are a lot of currencies, which represent a company and an idea, but are not any technological invention by themselves, and just use smart contracts of Ethereum or similar. They are basically just used to provide startup money to their ICO company and to express the faith of the investors in the company, like stocks. But unlike stocks, they are not providing any shares of the company's profits. So what's the sense for the investor to buy such coins?
5.) Technology:
Currencies like Ethereum, EOS, IOTA or Raiblocks are a great technological progress for all sorts of tasks in crypto, but why should their coins have any special value for investment? Investing in such coins has the same lack of sense as the previously described stock replacement currencies.
Sure, from an investor's view, everything wich increases the exchange value makes sense to invest in, but such investments in these "stock replacement" currencies seem not really long lasting and lack of the profit share of stocks. So to me it somehow seems nonsense to do such investments, although I actually do it for projects I believe in, since it somehow works so far in this (nice) nonsense community. :-)
Does my view make sense or am I missing something?
I have limited time (unfortunately) so I have skimmed through comment rather than read it fully, but the main reason I see cryptocurrencies having value at all is because some of them provide solutions that are either superior to their centralized business alternative, or simply do not exist in centralized form. As a result, if you want to partake in this activity, you must own the token. The token value will increase the more demand there is for the particular service it provides. Investors buy in because they anticipate real demand for a service a cryptocurrency provides to increase. This is really top level and I'll likely have to make a separate video and article on it at some point.
Hi @popanz, those are some nice points.
Its quite fair to say Bitcoin has no value like a dollar bill has no specific value. Society has used many things as currency, from salt to coffee beans. Currency is the reward for working in a human society and helping it develop.
I tend to think in utopias sometimes and then realize they aren't possible. But if they were, the most valuable coin, to be honest, would simply be...one... the one that's the cheapest to "print", that doens't cause the problems current fiat does, the safest, the fastest.
In this digital age, that currency could be a crypto currency.
We as humans should try to make wealth as much dependant of work and progress to society and cryptos are good candidates for this end.
As for adopting them? I'm very sceptical, not because I dont believe in cryptos and good will of people behind some, but because the current society not only would take a long time to accept a different currency than they used for centuries, but because I believe greed and corruption from centralized instutions would do absolutely anything to stop this from happening. If Bitcoin or any currency eventually becomes standard, then what happens to current banks? To national debts? It'd be interesting to see a scenario where a country would actually adopt Bitcoin as the currency and suddently their fiat debt would be absolutely tiny, because the bitcoin value in fiat would be astronomical.
I'm no economist or expert in finances, just a masters degree student in business, but I like to think about these kind of scenarios.