As of right now, the way I see it, Bitcoin core is only a store of value. And that is great. I have not changed my opinion or forecast on the price of Bitcoin.
I don't really buy into the "gold/silver"-analogy. I do think that if Litecoin, or any other coin, would bypass BTC in market cap, then there is no room for a coin that works only as a "store of value" anymore.
I'm worried about the overall trust in crypto currency after BTC starts to fall down.
BTC is the only crypto currency that get media attention in the 'normal' media.
So if BTC fails then the general public probably thinks crypto currency overall is in a bubble.
I'm equally worried - I do believe the BTC is very much overpriced now, people are buying because the price is increasing and the price is increasing because people are buying. Most of the new investors have no clue about such things as the capacity limit. They are either just buying on the FOMO, or they are buying on the promise that Bitcoin may become the dominant payment rails of the future. I fear that Bitcoin will crash hard as soon as the mainstream media picks up how bad Bitcoin really works. Quite some Bitcoin Cash fanatics hope for this "flippening" moment when the Bitcoin value crashes completely and some other crypto takes its position ... but no, I believe you are quite right that this will hurt a lot for the whole crypto community and not only BTC.
Luckily there seems to be quite many potential bag holders that will hodl to their precious bitcoins no matter what :-)
Our national media covered BTC a few days ago, and literaly explained it like this:
They aren't even talking about the potential use or the technology anymore. They just treat it like something to speculate with.
I wouldn't worry much about that. Even though the media is portraying Bitcoin like everyone owns it, almost no one does. (0,01-0,05% does) And those who do buy other cryptos for their BTC profit. If BTC would fall, that money would flow into alt-coins because the people invested in BTC at this point understand the utility of blockchain based "currencies"
Perhaps. But would gold have any value of all of a sudden it was not needed at all in industry? Would it have any value at all if it was ONLY a pretty object?
I think it would preserve most of its value even if it doesnt have any utility anymore.
And Bitcoin is also pretty. It has a place in our hearts. And perhaps thats not enough, but maybe it will. Who knows. What I do know is that more than one crypto currency, utility driven or not, will be worth an AMAZING amount of money. Eth, ltc, iota..something else? who knows will be worth 1000x or 10000x in the future. What I'm trying to do is just position myself. I'm only adding coins. I'm not selling out coins entirely. I'm too afraid I will miss the train when it leaves - and which coin(s) that's going to be is very hard to predict. Right now though, It seems like LTC is ready to take a leap forward.
Perhaps, perhaps, but still I don't think it's quite right to compare a nine year technology/software product that has recently become quite dysfunctional as a currency with a metal that has several thousand years of history as a currency and recently no longer serves any significant role as a currency.
I've started trading with gold at Localbitcoins recently, and I'm positively surprised - it's far easier (and more relaxing) to meet up at a coffee shop and count some 1oz gold coins than to count the equivalent amount of 500NOK-bills. No transaction fees, no worldwide capacity limit for how many gold transactions that can be done during a ten minute interval, and when the gold changes hands, it ... changes hands, no fuzz. :-)