I've heard smart people say bitcoin will plummet because it has no intrinsic value. Well of course it doesn't! It's a currency. Currencies are an abstraction for value.
Sure, right now bitcoin is not a good day-to-day currency because of high transaction fees and slow verification speeds. But there are new altcoins that have solved both of these, that exist right now!
The real win for cryptocurrencies, in my opinion, is that it's public-key internet money, while debit cards are private-key internet money. With debit cards, you have to give someone your private key (16 digit combo+exp date+security code) in order to transact. Giving away your private key is prone to fraud, and the fraud-protection mechanism is to give a centralized authority access to everything you've ever purchased, and they look for anything "suspicious". On the other hand, with public-key money, when you give someone funds, there's no risk of them exposing you to fraud or unwanted transactions afterwards. Even though I understood the public-key mechanism for bitcoin early on, I didn't realize the full implications for the financial system until recently.
Sure, right now bitcoin is not a good day-to-day currency because of high transaction fees and slow verification speeds. But there are new altcoins that have solved both of these, that exist right now!
The real win for cryptocurrencies, in my opinion, is that it's public-key internet money, while debit cards are private-key internet money. With debit cards, you have to give someone your private key (16 digit combo+exp date+security code) in order to transact. Giving away your private key is prone to fraud, and the fraud-protection mechanism is to give a centralized authority access to everything you've ever purchased, and they look for anything "suspicious". On the other hand, with public-key money, when you give someone funds, there's no risk of them exposing you to fraud or unwanted transactions afterwards. Even though I understood the public-key mechanism for bitcoin early on, I didn't realize the full implications for the financial system until recently.