RE: “There is a Bubble in everything.”
It's not all about speculation; the cryptocurrencies have real use cases that justify part of the valuation. Currently, the majority of the countries in the world issues non-fungible currencies. It's reasonable hard and expensive to move money in and out of China, Brazil, Malaysia, amongst others. If you are moving money to Brazil or China, you get a nice a fatty FX spread using cryptocurrencies. It accounts for two things: the cost of offshore incoming deposit and the demand as value reserve in those countries. The FX spread is as high as 20% in Brazil; so, an ordinary FX of USD.BRL of 3.50 for tier 1 banks would yield 3.30 for an average customer using traditional remittance systems but could get as high as 4.20 using Bitcoin or Ripple. Take into account that Brazilians and Chinese don't trust that much their currency, they would rather save money in an asset that governments can't control. The world economy isn't all about the western countries anymore; you need to mind the new actors. Everyone trading cryptocurrency does know that Chinese are the ones dictating the moves (crazy ones, by the way) in some major coins. Ethereum is going through correction now; there are real technical challenges and open issues, but this happened before for Bitcoin as well. I understand that for a great parcel of western investors the cryptocurrencies have no apparent value at all; that everybody is running after the Dutch tulips. People can move money from the UK to the US or from France to Japan with reasonable speed and cost using traditional remittance. But if you are such a person, remember that guys like me (Brazilian) can't move money quickly and cheaper from the UK to Brazil within traditional banking. You may not notice, but Brazilians are always top 5 foreigner spenders in the US, and Chinese are the top spender tourists of the world. Don't be restrained by your western closed box, raise your head and check around, that's my advice.
If moving a large sum from one currency to another isn't for capital gains, then it would be to retain your money's value. Still within the scope of speculation. I did not intend the article to explain all the uses of cryptocurrency. It is, without any doubt, a currency after all.
The point is to simply show who moves the market and show who has actually uses for the currency. Cryptocurrency was designed to replace fiat - to a certain scale depending on the token. Unless you could use ethers to buy food from 7 11, you have no business holding ethers other than profit, or retaining value, which is again, within the scope of speculation. Among many things, decentralization aims to control fees coming from fiat intermediaries. A great factor to lessen the barriers to entry. Although this is already advantageous, this was not what it was created for. It's not the jump from fiat to crypto, it's the use of crypto to commodities. Fiat is out of the picture.
Do not be mistaken my friend, my article does not tell you everything I know and I understand about cryptocurrency. It does not state the financial and economical advantages and disadvantages of which I am no stranger to. So before you leave a post or a comment, it would be best to realize that we are in Steemit. Meaning every word, sentence, paragraph, post is designed for a target audience. I appreciate your post brother. Thanks.
I never meant to contradict your article, but to bring a new perspective. I agree that ICO's are much hype without any real ground to stand. I agree that feel actors are pumping money in very shady investments. I see price moving to form billionaire market cap with a few trades with small amounts. But, tell me which cryptocurrency is more scammer than the CNY today? People are making hard choices as we speak. Your article is brilliant, don't worry. I am commenting it with my friends.
There is not a single point in my article where I say there is no inherent value in cryptocurrencies, which I both agree and disagree on. I'm Asian by the way.
I just realized, you have been responding differently on an article that has been meant for something else. I see that you have some personal experiences causing you to respond like that. Mind telling me what it is? I'm enjoying this so I'd like to keep this going if that's alright. Haha
And what's the problem? If I have been disrespectful, please accept my apologies. I just disagree that the world is only moved by big hidden agents. There are a lot of ordinary Chinese running from CNY to anything else that they can keep as reserve.
No it's all good bud. Don't worry about it.
Going back, that would be true. There is a lot of demand coming from the threats of hyperinflation. Then again, we all know the wealth distribution of such countries, and all other countries.
Realize that we are all living based on the will of a few people. For instance, over 50% of all bitcoins is held on less than 5% of bitcoin addresses. I doubt that we're still talking about people "plainly" getting out of fiat. We are now in a world of a few people.
Educational system was designed by them.
Financial system was designed by them. Banking system was designed by them.
It would be foolish to underestimate the level of macroeconomics existing in today's society.
Do you know how much of today's wealth is in the hands of the global elite?
80% is in less than 0 .01% of the population.
You know they make all the choices, not us. Now extrapolate based on that. If i was part of the elite and i decided to go bullish, how many of your friends would it take to balance the currency? Now do you think crypto is in that stage now?