wargames wrote:I still think Crypto's only function is to facilitate illegal transactions.

It only has value as a black market curren$y and it has only been a lack of government oversight that lets it thrive. Well, that and the lack of oversight on the USPS that lets people order illegal stuff online to be shipped to their homes that feeds the need for Crypto.

If govt's find a way to regulate crypto currencies, they are worthless.

Juliano wrote:

meloshouldgo wrote:I have stayed ot of cryptos. Something that had no intrinsic value (like gold) can only survive on speculation or safe heaven status. The speculation can leave you holding worthless assets almost overnight, safe havens are better, but bitcoin hasn't proved its status as one yet.

Well, one could argue that gold has no intrinsic value either, it is not vital to mankind as say uranium or plutonium now are. What fundamental use is gold?

Gold, at least, at till present day and foreseeable future, is a commodity of limited quantity. You can't just print new gold. Yet.
Crypto claims to be fixed quantity, but then they add to the pool of crypto currency everytime they start a new crypto coin.

reub wrote:Stay away from crypto. Someone gave me a small piece of bitcoin years ago, it went up tremendously in value, and now I have no way of getting it out. No private key or something. There's a good chance you'll lose all of your money too.

As any wealth representation crypto requires some brain power to preserve and expand it.
Education, discipline, and skills are helpful too.
With crypto it is just more obvious that whoever has it must be computer-savvy and understand technology.
That's why Gold is better. Very simple and not much skills required.
At the end of the day money on crypto will be made not on Bitcoin but on some other coins which will represent the crypto-application which will be widely adapted.
Internet is just the a core of countless technologies which are making tons of wealth our days.
Same may be true about the crypto one day.

Juliano wrote:

Panos wrote:Gold, at least, at till present day and foreseeable future, is a commodity of limited quantity. You can't just print new gold. Yet.
Crypto claims to be fixed quantity, but then they add to the pool of crypto currency everytime they start a new crypto coin.

It is estimated that half of the planet's gold reserve have already been extracted, so there's as much coming. My point was that if you think about it, gold's value is only a perceived value, albeit a very, very strong one. It is not essential to mankind the way other raw materials are (oil for the time being, uranium, plutonium, copper, steel, latex, etc), what would be make human life harder if there was no gold anymore? It only has the value people give to it, and so does crypto. It's just that a lot more people have valued gold and for a much longer time so it is engraved in everyone's brain but who does vitally use gold on a daily basis?

I concur. Same thing with diamonds and other "jewels"