I think that is a really bad line of logic. There are lots of things that have been around for a long time and make some people plenty of money that are bad things. Pyramid schemes fit your definition - should I start buying in?

The opposite way to pose this is: Cryptocurrencies have been around for 9+ years, and there has been literally 0 use for it apart from conning rubes on the internet. The important thing to ask is whether it has a purpose and has it delivered on that purpose. There's really only one theoretical purpose that it's meant to serve - being free from tyrannical government. Well that kind of worked when capital fled into it from China - but there's also been crack downs. It also doesn't explain the US fascination.

I think there comes a point where 9 years in, you have to ask: What purpose does cryptocurrency serve beyond enriching people who are already invested.

>What purpose does cryptocurrency serve beyond enriching people who are already invested.

Limited scope and obviously doesn't justify the money that is swirling in crypto right now.

However, if we want digital things to be non-fungible we're probably going to need something like a block chain. Cryptokitties(as beanie-baby-esque as they are) and the implementation of the ERC-271 token come to mind.

Again I realize cryptokittes are not really a great example other than proof of concept, but imagine with me for a second a fine art market where all the art is digital, this requires a decentralized non-fungible token, maybe digital house or car keys would be another thing where we want to limit the number of people with access to the thing, again if we don't want to trust someone like say equifax, with control over that we're going to want a decentralized non-fungible token.

I realize these aren't necessarily the best examples of non-fungible assets we might want one day. However it seems absurd to me that moving forward society won't at some point demand some digital asset that is non-fungible. If that assumption holds true then some form of cypto-currency is going to be necessary to provide such an asset.

I'm not arguing necessarily for its utility or intrinsic worth, just that it's entrenched and far from the inevitable house of cards that detractors wish for.

Call it gambling if you will. What is the intrinsic value of a game of blackjack? None, yet an entire industry is propped up by it.

Who cares? If people want to play in Bitcoin, what difference does it make. Nobody is being forced.

> Who cares? If people want to play in Bitcoin, what difference does it make.

The externalities. This very thread is about how Bitcoin is messing up power grids and will soon be responsible for a non-negligible percentage of Earth's entire power usage (and the attendant pollution). It's not consequence-free fun.

Did you read the article? I believe it highlights the difference it makes.

It'll force us to fix our infrastructure and be prepared for the future, sounds like a good thing.

Preparing the infrastructure for uses that it was never intended, and most people will never use, doesn't sound like a good thing to me -- it sounds like a waste of money.

>Cryptocurrencies have been around for 9+ years, and there has been literally 0 use for it apart from conning rubes on the internet.

That's weird, I've been using it to buy stuff off amazon and aliexpress. Am I a conned rube?

Does that mean Visa is conning rubes as well?

> That's weird, I've been using it to buy stuff off amazon and aliexpress.

How? Neither company seems to accept Bitcoin directly.

Purse.io lets you buy from Amazon

Is Amazon accepting the Bitcoin or is that just a way to convert it into real money first? If the seller doesn't know, it doesn't count as Bitcoin usage — just another Visa transaction.

>If the seller doesn't know, it doesn't count as Bitcoin usage — just another Visa transaction.

You've got some strong arms on you my friend, moving those goal posts so far so fast.

I pay with bitcoin. Stuff arrives in the mail. I am using bitcoin.

That’s as accurate as saying that Amazon accepts payments in stock if I sell some before making a purchase. The fact that you paid a different company to convert your Bitcoin into some real currency is a separate transaction. It doesn’t mean that Amazon has any exposure or investment in the Bitcoin world - just that they take credit cards like everyone else.

If I sell some gold, then use the proceeds to buy from Amazon, I haven't bought anything with gold from Amazon. Yes, you are using Bitcoin, but not to buy from Amazon--it's just another layer on top, it's just another (largely unnecessary) transaction in addition to the existing transaction.

A reminder to yourself and acdha, the original assertion was:

>Cryptocurrencies have been around for 9+ years, and there has been literally 0 use for it apart from conning rubes on the internet.

So...

>Yes, you are using Bitcoin

Yes, I am. I don't understand why you two are so angrily and bitterly agreeing with me.

I use olodolo, but same difference.

That's not how bubbles work. It can still be worthless snakeoil even if someone pays you for it.

Of course. Many have become rich investing in startups that added no value to the world as well. My point is the many arguments that this is a just a house of cards that will inevitably come crashing down, and I don't think that's the case. A bubble by definition has to pop. A fad has to pass. At what point does something become entrenched to the point that its continuing existence is essentially guaranteed?

The closest thing I've found for estimating how long something nonperishable (i.e. technology or an idea, not food or animals) will stick around is with a theory called The Lindy Effect. Generally speaking, the longer something has lasted, the longer you can expect it to last. So if something has lasted for X amount of time, you can expect it to last for X more amount of time. And 5 years from then, if it's still around, you can expect it to last another X+5 years.

In other words, most things don't last very long, but things that do last for a long time tend to stick around a lot longer than you might normally expect them to. Like people predicting the death of Facebook. Sure, something will probably eventually take it down or become the next Facebook. But it's been around for so long now, a betting man shouldn't bet on it happening anytime soon.

Now one might argue that on the day Myspace died this effect would predict that it would be around for yet another 6+ years (or whatever it ended up being). And to that I'd say that this is a guide for predicting future behavior, not a crystal ball that can accurately predict everything forever. And some would argue that the writing was on the wall for Myspace long before it actually went kaput anyway.

So Bitcoin has been around in some form or another for 9+ years, and withstood a huge laundry list of setbacks, tests of its security, and evolution of the ecosystem in the meantime. So it's probably going to stick around for awhile.

Meanwhile, XYZCoin and it's hot new ICO has been around for about five days, so there's nothing to suggest that it's going to stick around for very long and you should be a lot more careful about putting your money into it.

More info on the Lindy Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

A lot of money? As in actual, hard currency? Color me skeptical.

Don't really understand where your question is coming from. Are you implying that exchanges aren't real? That people never cash out?

Even so, how much wealth in this world is based in "actual, hard currency"? How many developers have unvested options? How much of Musk's wealth is in the bank as opposed to tied up in his businesses? I think you're trying to stand up a strawman.

>A lot of money? As in actual, hard currency?

Yes. Definitely.