re: original post. Your basic argument seems to be: blockchain is valuable and unique because of its ability to create a no-effort, trustworthy ledger, but any product made from it is so easy to create that the products are inherently valueless. It's not a proof of anything because the argument is paradoxical - the worth of blockchain only lies in its utility, ie, creation of human usable blockchain products - bitcoin, for example. But if Bitcoin 2.0 can replace Bitcoin, then no coin can ever have value because everyone will be sitting on the sidelines waiting for the next 'real' crypto. But the meme of inherent value is self-contradictory. Gold has no inherent value - without humans to value it collectively, it is only a rock. Value only comes from the utility to a participant - food has no value until someone/thing needs to eat. (this need not be collectively valued, of course, but money must, by definition). So Bitcoin, gold, USdollars or anything that exists solely to store value or to exchange for market products - all of these instruments have NO inherent or individuated value. Therefore, the value is always and only what the market claims it is. While your arguments have some validity, they apply to fiat currencies and other instruments just as much as bitcoin. Governments can always create another fiat currency or more units - why should these have value more than Bitcoin? The market has spoken - they do not. I don't think BTC will drop to $1 in our lifetimes. We seem to be at the beginning of a significant change in the economic structure and the benefits of blockchain are only beginning to be understood. BTC has value because it is the cornerstone of the market and as long as problems of full blocks and so forth find reasonable solutions (which is by no means certain),then it should maintain market value. If the miners and others fail to sustain utility, then value will drop to the level of utility. Or not.
It's not illegal in India - they made a very clear statement about that. But there is much confusion. Unless you have a source? I am interested.
Oh, crap - thanks for the tip. Here I was keeping assets in both instruments! Yikes! Not allowed! Danger, Will Robinson!
So I'm moving money around to try out some crypto projects I'm thinking about buying into. I had like $90 worth of litecoin sitting in my coinbase account from a while ago. To put it where I want it I needed bitcoin. To get it to bitcoin cost $6.00 on coinbase. To send it cost me about $4.00 in fees. Lets see how long it takes to confirm. So far it is 12 minutes with zero confirms. The current players and tech are not the future.
This is a really well thought out and logical post. Your point that if you always are waiting for the perfect tech you will be sidelined (like me so far) is a great one that I wish I had understood sooner. I disagree on your assessment of bitcoin. I don't think it currently provides a lot of utility, except as an awesome trading/gambling vehicle. It is not very useful as a store of value or as a method of transaction. I think POS coins that reward ownership vs electricity consumption will beat it because a token that rewards ownership with a share of transaction fees is like a stock that pays dividends and encourages buying and holding. There is literally no reason to hold bitcoin aside from speculation on further rise.
I guess I should check back in about 3.5 hours to see if my transaction went through. I honestly wouldn't be comfortable holding a lot of $ in bitcoin even for the time it takes to transfer it where I need it. I'm probably going to move my money 10 pct at a time when I figure out what I want to invest in so I don't risk a large drawdown in the time it takes to confirm my transaction.