The difference is that there is a potential future market for electric cars and any company getting into the market early might have an advantage. Bitcoin just has no future as a currency (beyond the illegal market, where 10 dollars transaction cost may be acceptable) because of its design flaws to act as such. Whether any other cryptocurrency might work as a currency remains to be seen, but the speculation on and the resulting volatility of Bitcoin are not exactly inspiring confidence into that. Most people are buying Bitcoin to hoard them and get rich -- not to use it instead of a real currency. By now cryptocurrencies have the image of highly risky speculation targets and the more the Bitcoin price jumps around, the more this image will be reinforced. However, this is exactly the opposite you want to convey to the public if you want to convince them of using this instead of real currencies.
That said, I do not think it is a Ponzi scheme, because it lacks the fraudulent behavior that is associated with that. It is just an old-fashioned economic bubble, where the price of things has gone far beyond the real economic value.
I do not see the difference. Transaction costs can be trimmed, technology inevitably advances, as a result some cryptos may evolve, free from multiple encumbrances, shared by most real currencies. Digital currency, which can be insta-transferred from one smartfone to another at negligible cost? People wanted that for a long time, the banks and the governments have been exclusively screwing with currencies for too long and now that the bitcoin has risen, the Hype is real. It's the new new thing. The market will take a shape, and these, who got in early will have the advantage. That's what crypto-investors think, similarly to Tesla investors. Who cares that most autogiants are competing with Tesla? Who cares that it will never, likely, become profitable, like Musk suggests, today? Nevermind all that, we're discussing a dream.
With ever-decreasing supply of new money, crypto tries to be both an asset and currency, like gold. You don't see real world currencies decreasing their supply.. that often. I see airlines and online shops accepting the new gold, inquired how local airline does it, they claim to exchange bitcoins into euro immediately on purchase, opting out of instability, obviously.
So, it's a bubble, big deal! Whenever that stopped anyone from doing stupid things.. as for the real economic value.. well, who can tell where it's at? If crypto manages to bite off 10% from real world counterparts, the market cap càn be in the trillions. The market tends to price things and that's the only way I know of to derive real value today. That, and the Oracle can tell. People have ideas about "real economic value", but we don't have to, see. Theres already market for that.
). Im talking about money I made in the last 12 months
