As you can see in my other comments the basic things it lacks are a worldwide history of acceptance as currency (going back millennia in the case of gold) as well as uniqueness (the non-existence of equivalent substitutes). Whatever the technical characteristics of bitcoin, an alt coin can have the same technical characteristics. So we are riding a thin uniqueness, in terms of level of acceptance, that is not going to be driven deeper due to limits on adoption as a currency. (That I mention elsewhere.)
The uniqueness is a special lock-in for gold, and as gold becomes inconvenient due to price or scarcity, you can't just transfer it to Pt (platinum) or Ag (silver) in 10 minutes times however many confirmations you need. Gold has several layers of stickiness or lock-in, including historical and technical/physical.
Not so for bitcoin. It has self-limiting on adoption (due to the lack of anyone minting it by fiat, and its low total numbers), but moving away from it takes just minutes.
The most interesting chart is seeing the fall of bitcoin market cap against the rise of all other alt coins market cap - and to see if that is on the fall or on the rise.
Especially when things aren't denominated in BTC, but it is just used transiently, really, any other currency with a spot price will do just as well. There is no reason to believe bitcoin will have any greater use as a currency in the future than it does now. And unlike gold, it has no historical lock-in as a long-term store of value. No one is "stuck" with it, it is easy to verify transfer, and it is a totally liquid market (even at 3 AM on bank holidays) that is not held up by any printed prices or industrial uses.
It doesn't even have basic exchange mechanisms such as halting trading. The spot price of Bitcoin can collapse overnight. Unlike gold, there is just anything holding it up long-term.
It's a bit like pokemon cards, beanie babies, or pogs. Sure it can have value for a while, but as it doesn't see adoption as a currency, has no alternative or basic uses (less than these three examples in fact), and is very easy to move away from - there is no reason to suppose this will not happen. Bitcoin for a while was the only currency with its particular properties. But that is far from true anymore.
The uniqueness is a special lock-in for gold, and as gold becomes inconvenient due to price or scarcity, you can't just transfer it to Pt (platinum) or Ag (silver) in 10 minutes times however many confirmations you need. Gold has several layers of stickiness or lock-in, including historical and technical/physical.
Not so for bitcoin. It has self-limiting on adoption (due to the lack of anyone minting it by fiat, and its low total numbers), but moving away from it takes just minutes.
The most interesting chart is seeing the fall of bitcoin market cap against the rise of all other alt coins market cap - and to see if that is on the fall or on the rise.
Especially when things aren't denominated in BTC, but it is just used transiently, really, any other currency with a spot price will do just as well. There is no reason to believe bitcoin will have any greater use as a currency in the future than it does now. And unlike gold, it has no historical lock-in as a long-term store of value. No one is "stuck" with it, it is easy to verify transfer, and it is a totally liquid market (even at 3 AM on bank holidays) that is not held up by any printed prices or industrial uses.
It doesn't even have basic exchange mechanisms such as halting trading. The spot price of Bitcoin can collapse overnight. Unlike gold, there is just anything holding it up long-term.
It's a bit like pokemon cards, beanie babies, or pogs. Sure it can have value for a while, but as it doesn't see adoption as a currency, has no alternative or basic uses (less than these three examples in fact), and is very easy to move away from - there is no reason to suppose this will not happen. Bitcoin for a while was the only currency with its particular properties. But that is far from true anymore.