The argument would be that those other coins are not wasting as much energy to avoid double spend. So BTC would be more secure.
While this is true now, it doesn’t seem like something that’s set in stone (another blockchain could end up displacing it either with PoS like ETH or something else), though if/when it happens it will be gradual not a sudden shift (except if it crashes due to a new flaw being discovered)
We can agree it’s a decentralised scheme that doesn’t seem orchestrated by a nefarious organisation or “leader” on top.
That doesn’t mean you can’t sound like a Ponzi salesman - or that your posts couldn’t remind TeaCup of one, though. 
While I don’t know about Satoshi Nakamoto exactly, it seems very plausible and believable that it wasn’t created as a get rich quick scheme. Also, I don’t think they anticipated that their (proof-of-work) scheme would, within a couple of years, consume more energy than entire mid-sized countries.
In fact, I think its creators didn’t (in earnest) anticipate today’s economics at all.
However, whatever you call it - pyramid, Ponzi, neither might be be entirely accurate - the de-facto economics of Bitcoin today are basically the same: The system and its price development do resemble a get-rich-quick scheme and rely on very similar economics.
It’s just that history (from 2017) seems to be able to repeat itself.
Bitcoin is fascinating. How many people who are strong BTC advocates nowadays have read the whitepaper, though? How many have really studied the fundamentals past the “it’s decentralized, and safe, and the price goes up and up and up”? Do they know how the decentralization, and the safety are guaranteed? And for how long it can go up and up before running out of fuel?
True believers should not care about the price, because Bitcoin should not be used to trade with fiat but to replace it. They should care about wide adoption (which you do). Yes, some people use Bitcoin as a protection against hyper-inflation, yes, some believe it is there to stay as a real currency, or a real store of value, but a lot of the money in it is there because its price has multiplied 10x in a matter of a year.
Even you, as an informed believer, have used the price going up as half of the argument when defending Bitcoin uses as a store of value. When you put it alongside that the price only goes up if more people buy in, that it comes from the volume traded and not from the entire Bitcoin supply, meaning that if too many people want to take too much fiat out of it, it will crumble, it is pretty concerning.
The price going up is not an argument, we can make the price go up on anything we want if we pour enough money in it. Heck, Hertz stock went up after the company filed for bankruptcy! Everybody and their mother is investing into skyrocketing “assets”, these days.
So, when people come on boards and talk about Bitcoin as an investment, because its price goes up, it sounds like salesmanship, because we know that more people buying in are needed for the prices to keep going up and that those who get in late are the most likely to be left holding the bags.
I’d say the problem isn’t really to find or create another more efficient coin with the same fundamentals but to get people to study the fundamentals, and those of the other coins, before throwing in the money they want to send on the moon. Some of Bitcoin’s success is fundamentals, most of its recent success also comes from it being known. The price goes up because it’s popular, it’s popular because the price goes up, very hard to dethrone during the craze.
Usually people come for the price, and hopefully stay for the tech, use cases, philosophy behind it and whatnot. And that’s fine!
Not really actually, if we take the second one in terms of market cap, Ethereum, you immediately have issues when it comes to the store of value use case:
it was premined, so the initial distribution was not fair giving more power to the founders (eg Vitalik)
it is much more centralized, it can be censored and developers could technically roll back transactions
Monetary policy can be changed by the developers
PoS implementation will accelerate the centralization problem
And little known fact, parts of Ethereum is running on AWS, which consume lots of energy and add a single point of failure/censorship
And that’s okay, Ethereum was not designed to be a store of value, it is better for other use cases. Above points applies to most other crypto as far as I know… Think about doge or Swissborg for instance.
Look, I really don’t know the details of how these things work. But isn’t it possible for someone to come up with a new and better (for all the features you care about like scarcity, decentralization, power usage, etc…) cryptocurrency/blockchain/protocol/whatever which would make BTC obsolete in the blink of an eye? What prevents that?
Hey guys, what’s your take on Monero (XMR)? I wrote about it here:
Would a truly private crypto not eventually win over one that is public? With Monero the transactions cannot be traced, so you also cannot check the balance of an account (like you can in Bitcoin).
In the meantime BTC is dumping sub 30K
It’s funny, that when BTC tanks, all cryptos tank.
But in the event of the China ban, isn’t my question about XMR even more relevant? Ban it all you want, you can’t do anything if you can’t find out if someone has it or not.
The same is true for drugs, but I wouldn’t want to get caught with 10kg of heroin. Especially in countries like China…
It’s a different thing to hide 10 kg of drugs. You buy it and sell it physically, and if they come and search your house, it’s easy to find. But crypto? Just write down 25 words somewhere (or underline it in a book) and good luck.
Besides, I can see how dealing drugs can be morally questionable. But outlawing some funny digital app for nerds? This is ridiculous and we should be outraged by it. But of course we’re not, because we saw it coming. In my opinion, this only legitimizes cryptos even further. Either cryptos are useless and not worth our time, or they’re dangerous and have to be banned, these options are mutually exclusive. The more they ban them, the more reason for them to exist.
Yeah, just some funny digital app for nerds: 
You didn’t get my point. Either is BTC a joke and the price is much too high, or it’s for real. So I was purposefully downplaying BTC importance. Sure, the governments will find many reasonable justifications to ban cryptos: terrorism, crime, etc. But the bad guys will find a way, it’s about losing control over people.
I don’t think the fact that it’s difficult to proof people are guilty will prevent governments from banning it.
You also have to consider that crypto has to be mined and bought. I’m sure there are plenty ways to shut this down it just depends on the effort (see P2P filesharing, darknet, …).
Just the ban itself would be devastating for investors, no matter how strict it would be enforced. Forget about institutional money or the average Joe investing into something that’s forbidden.
I’m not saying that I think it will happen or that this would be a good thing.
A better analogy might be a non-declared bank account. Difficult to detect but most people aren’t going to do it.
I don’t think these options are mutually exclusive. I am just learning about cryptos but clearly they have potential use. BTC is adding value in countries with failed central banking systems because it is trusted more than local currency (Nigeria, Venezuela). Criminal activity seems to be another use.
Probably the goverments in those countries are not very happy about either of these though! There are also use potentials for central bank backed crypto.
Unless crypto is illegal everywhere, mining & transactions (incl. between crypto World & real World) can happen in the countries where it’s legal.
I’m not saying they will not ban crypto because it’s hard to enforce. I’m saying, it’s not the end of the World. Yes, initially you might get scared, but if your friend does it, and your neighbour does it, then you might try it, too. Especially in countries with poor law enforcement and high corruption.
Again, a World where they ban cryptos everywhere is freaking scary. It’s a message, that there should only be one centrally-controlled local currency and you’re not allowed to create your own, or we will put you in jail. Don’t you see how dystopian this is?
This is just a bullshit reason. The Internet can also be used for criminal activity. So can be knives and cars. I guess we should ban or heavily restrict them? If you’re so paranoid about security on the macro scale, you will gladly welcome these restrictions. The social credit score will be a cherry on the top.
They are regulations for the Internet
Cars and knives are restricted… you can’t drive without a driving licence, there are strict rules about circulation, licence plates allow to identify owners of car, knives are forbidden in many public places, having a knife on you in some situations may get you in trouble even if you did not use it (e.g. fight) etc. etc…Yet we sill live in a democratic state.
Are there any regulations with crypto? Nope… therefore it allows any illegal activity you wish for
Tho this world is the current one for thousands of years? State sovereignty over money matters is nothing new.
Edit: for example Templars got burnt for that stuff.
If you guys are in favor of banning cryptos then I’m sorry, we’ve lost already.
You own and don‘t want the ban.
Or.
You don‘t own and want the ban/crash.
Not sure.
Seeing how the US politics is warming up to Btc, I really don’t think a ban is coming. That being said, all countries with a ban (or near ban) saw the volume of transaction increase. Actually I see that India changed their mind today and don’t want to ban crypto anymore.
As for monero, overall a fan but unfortunately the volume and number of users remain too low, we need a bigger network effect.
Finally, people talking about criminal activities should check what banks are doing and how much they pay in lawsuits every year… USD and HSBC are much better than btc for criminals.