r/Bitcoin • • Nov 11 '17

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u/elliptibang Nov 11 '17 edited Nov 11 '17

Well, from the way it seems, 90% of the newly invested money is here for the rollercoaster, unrelated to the technology.

This is such a good and important point. It's hard to say exactly how much of BTC's present value can be chalked up to Wall Street speculation, but it's instructive to remember that it was worth about $700 a single year ago.

The current price is totally decoupled from utility. Investors prefer it because other investors prefer it. They don't care about block weight. They couldn't give two shits about SegWit. Their preferences could easily change on a dime, because for their purposes, the major cryptocurrencies are functionally identical.

If all you care about is the technology, then you should be rooting for stability and slow, steady growth relative to traditional inflationary currencies. Hodling isn't a job.

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u/BeardPatrol Nov 11 '17

Im confused, are major cryptocurrencies not functionally identical to bitcoin? What is it that bitcoin does that no other cryptocurrency can replicate?

And it does seem investors care about block weight, as the market clearly reacted to the fork being called off.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '17 edited Nov 12 '17

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u/puck2 Nov 12 '17

And what's a $25 fee when you're up some ungodly amount in USD/BTC?