RE: Bitcoin can't possibly reach news highs this year, can it?
Obviously this is my opinion and obviously it will not be shared by most people on this platform, but....
...if 99% of all alt-coins are considered sh*tcoins, what makes the other 1% different? "Mass Adoption"? Maybe. But the mob mentality is a fickle beast and can easily be swayed..
Back in the day, when there were only 3 coins, BTC, LTC, and DOGE, DOGE was considered a joke and LTC was considered the sh*tcoin. The only thing that set BTC apart was that it was first.
To this day, there is nothing backing it. Not precious metals, not diamonds, furs, agricultural products, nope, nothing of value. At least fiat currency has the backing of the government (for what that's worth).
So in a nutshell, it has nothing backing it except mass/mob adoption.
Very true. Keep in mind that could also be said of gold though. Yes gold has some industrial use, but if it was priced strictly for its industrial and jewelry uses, it would be priced far lower than $1200. Things have value because people believe they do, bitcoin being no different. I would venture to say a lot of the money in bitcoin is not in it because it believes bitcoin will some day be the defacto currency of the world. No, I think most of the money in it see bitcoin as a store of value. One where the supply is fixed and known with no ability by governments to intervene. There are not many potential store of values that share those same characteristics out there.