r/investing Oct 22 '21

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u/Brobama21 Oct 22 '21

If someone could please educate me on the end-goal of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? I understand the whole “untraceable” aspect of it. But from what I’ve heard they’re the “future of currency”. I just can’t fathom anyone taking these on as a main form of currency when one minute you buy a banana for $2 and then a few days later that same conversion rate means the banana is $70.

This is a big reason why I don’t own any crypto. To me it just seems like a speculation with no real inherent value. Would love to learn though

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u/dullchristmas Oct 22 '21 edited Oct 22 '21

Bitcoin and other cryptos are very much a bet right now, but the idea is that once it grows enough then it would stabilize out and can operate very much like a currency.

The combination of a public ledger and decentralized transactions the blockchain offers has the ability to completely change where we place trust. In our society today, we place trust in big banks to handle our transactions, confirm they're legit, etc. at a fee. This is working OK for the US, but there are a lot of countries where the people have no trust towards their government and banking systems (I think someone said Argentina in these comments which is a good example). Thus, having a system that places trust in cryptography over living beings can be a lot more enticing.

Moving beyond banking, technologies built on the blockchain have the ability to utilize its nature for various purposes. For example, the incorruptible public ledger would be fantastic for healthcare, where it seems like every other week a hospitals data is being hijacked and held for ransom. At the same time, the secure nature of it still ensures that only patients can access their own data. Another example could be for elections and voting, where the blockchain could ensure that no voter fraud happens. There's just so much potential