No, speculation is the primary use case for all of these coins right now.
And crypto currency has some advantages over the other speculation options you mentioned:
- more people can participate because of them being unregulated (compare: forex trading, which has much higher barriers of entry)
- it is rather easy to not pay taxes on crypto gains in many countries, especially if you're staying below certain limits
And the most important of them all: the crypto cake is still expanding and has been expanding for over ten years now. That is the crucial difference between classic forex trading and crypto - in forex, the comparative value of different currencies usually stays within a certain range. It goes up and it goes down. In crypto, the crypto just has been getting more and more valuable over the long term. It goes up, and up, and down, and further up than before again, and then some more up.
As long as this continues, any gambler betting on crypto has an edge and will win more than he loses. Of course it can't continue like this forever, but that's easy to ignore when looking at a ten year history of unbelievable gains.
What I mean is people can transact via traditional systems just fine and they choose cryptocurrency because of other qualities.
> largely unregulated gambling area
The speculation is a separate thing from the coins themselves. People also speculate with fiat currencies, stocks, real estate.
> That's also where your frustration comes from: Bitcoin is perfectly fine for this kind of "value proposition", hence it stays King of the Hill.
Yes. What I don't understand is how it drags the whole market along with it no matter where it goes.